BK's notes hit the jackpot for me this morning. Let's get right to it, shall we?
Hospital Horror.
That's what I'm naming it.
When I saw the first airing of the Twilight Zone "Eye of the Beholder" episode at the tender age of ten or eleven, I was already a fan and was engrossed in watching it in my grandmother's room. (She was staying with us for a year in a rental house in Florida, prior to our buying a house.) I'd already been creeped out by the strange atmosphere of that hospital and the heroine's bandaged head and haunting voice, and the unsettling conversations with doctors and nurses. But with that first reveal near the end, little DR ChasSmith freaked right the hell out, covering his face and screaming. I still remember my grandmother running over to turn the TV off. I think I was already prone to scary dreams in those years, but that episode hit a nerve. In spite of that, I loved that episode and remained fascinated with it, but I think it was a quite a while before I was ready to return to it, and of course I later watched it a million times and loved it thereafter.
Then came "22". That one's pattern of the repeating nightmares with the ticking clock and glass of water and the morgue and the scary nurse affected me just as much, though thankfully without the violent reaction. But it also added death-related subject matter which morbidly fascinated me then.
And then, years later, Coma. I ate up every frame of that movie. And again, the creepy/scary hospital atmosphere that led to the discovery of the creepy/scary "institute" or whatever they called it. And yes, the score! What was additionally effective for me was the doctor's (Richard Widmark) playing of Mozart during his surgeries, because that piece suddenly introduced a calming and lovely, but (in the context of the scene) mournful/horrific quality as the camera tracked the anesthesia line going from the wall outlet to the operating table. Yes, the Women's Lib content is funny today, but the movie is a winner with a capital "W". A big "W".
Edit: In my fan letter to Rod Serling some months later I told him how much those hospital settings in particular meant to me. I don't remember what I actually said in it, but I do still have his thank-you reply.
