Smith's Grove – Warren County Sanitarium
Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium is a fictional Illinois state hospital and psychiatric care facility set in real-life Warren County, Illinois. It was the location of treatment and incarceration of now-serial killer Michael Myers from November 1963 to October 30, 1978. Along with the City of Haddonfield, Illinois, it is one of the most important story settings in the Halloween motion picture saga. While it was featured on-screen in two Halloween installments (I & VI) and explained or simply implied in five (I, II, IV, VI, & VII), it continues to be a mysterious place among many fans of the series.
The Facility's Beginnings
The Warren County Sanitarium is located on 1605 Shady Lane in Smith's Grove, Illinois. The sanitarium opened in the summer of 1963 with Dr. Terence Wynn as its chief administrator and a Dr. Rogers in charge of the rehabilitation program. Both men were members of the Mental Health Department. When it finally opened to accept patients, the sanitarium received initial praise throughout Illinois and the United States from the medical community. It was one of only several clinical institutions built for the treatment, reformation, and rehabilitation of criminals and persons suffering from mental illnesses. Because the level of danger the patients posed to nearby society was relatively low, they were remanded under minimum security. To the public, the new facility was satisfactory in patient care, therefore a safe institution to neighboring communities and for visitors.
Some of their newly resident members of staff were professional practitioners of medicine brought in from abroad. Dr. Samuel J. Loomis, from the United Kingdom, was one of the hospital's highly recommended doctors whose medical specialty was in child psychiatry. He was placed on staff, shortly after permanently moving to America, with help from Dr. Wynn.
In his career, Loomis succeeded in treating many of his earlier patients. While in his tenure at Smith's Grove, the treatment and reform of his first and only patient was of no success on any level.
1963 - 1964
In early November, Dr. Loomis received six-year-old Michael Audrey Myers. For the rest of his natural life, Loomis would adopt unconventional obsession in trying to solve the enigma of his patient's relentless rage and remorseless violent behavior.
For a period of six months, the genuine psychiatrist was ordered to spend four hours each day in therapy sessions with the young boy. Finally, on Friday May 1, 1964, Loomis tried convincing two superior doctors that Michael's state of catatonia was a force, "a conscious act." He believed that there was "an instinctive force within him." Michael was keeping himself silent, but still alert as if he was "waiting" for something; but Loomis did not know what it was.
On the stormy night of Monday October 30, 1978, after fifteen years of confinement, the now-21-year-old Michael Myers "awakened" from his fictitious catatonia. In his cell, he scrawled the word "sister" onto the back of his door, and trashed the bed, walls, and windows. Succeeding in breaking one of the windows, he freed himself from the room. He opened the doors in the corridor releasing other patients and pushed them all outside. Bernardi, the night watchman, was not present during his regular duty at around 10:00 P.M. Michael had wanted to create chaos to keep from being detected by the facility's staff.
Also that night, Dr. Loomis and his assistant Nurse Marion Chambers arrived at Smith's Grove to pick up Michael for his scheduled court date. While driving up, they noticed a few patients, wearing only nightgowns, were "wandering around" the grounds of the sanitarium even while the storm raged on. Loomis instructed Marion to "pull up to the main gate" so he could telephone the hospital about the released patients. When Loomis was on the telephone, Michael appeared, frightened Marion, and hijacked the station-wagon. Michael's destination was Haddonfield, Illinois, his childhood hometown.
The next morning, a nurse of the sanitarium explained to Dr. Loomis that it took most of the night to round up the released patients. In fact, "one of them was way over in the Morgantown Road." She escorted Loomis to Michael's cell revealing what his patient wrote on the door. Loomis knew that Michael was on his way home to Haddonfield.
When the death of three teenagers is revealed on Haddonfield's WWAR news broadcast, Reporter Robert Mundy explains that the perpetrator is "a mental patient who escaped last night from the Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium. He is now believed to be at large in Haddonfield." This is the first time in the series that the sanitarium is referred to by its complete name.
Immediately after discovering "Samhain" written in blood in an elementary school classroom, Loomis speaks with his colleague Marion. She had just arrived in Haddonfield directly from Smith's Grove. She was charged with telling Loomis that he is ordered by their superiors back to the sanitarium. When news of the night's events reached all over the state, the Illinois governor demanded that Dr. Rogers send a marshal to retrieve Loomis with Marion's help.
Dr. Rogers wanted Loomis out of Haddonfield to reduce the possibility of a city and state-wide panic. Apparently, he did not want any person who was a member of the Mental Health Department anywhere near Haddonfield. If widespread panic erupted and Michael Myers was not captured, the sanitarium's public image and rehabilitation program could be jeopardized.
Much to his dismay, Loomis soon after reluctantly agreed to go back to Smith's Grove with Marion. While traveling out of the city, Marion explained that the governor had a bigger role in the evening's events. When news of Michael's actions reached the capital city of Springfield, the governor ordered Dr. Rogers to open a sealed file about Michael. The file revealed that Michael was the second of three children. Laurie Strode, the young woman whom was Myers' quintessential target, was his younger sister. Loomis realized much to his shock that "he killed one sister fifteen years ago, now he's trying to kill the other." Michael Myers came home to relive the crime that caused him to be incarcerated in the first place.
Because the Smith's Grove sanitarium was a minimum security facility, Michael was instead held in a federal prison. For ten years, while in a coma, Myers was held at the Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium in southern Illinois, four hours by car from Haddonfield.
On the night of Sunday October 30, 1988, two Smith's Grove medical attendants were charged by Myers' primary superiors to transfer him back to the Warren County sanitarium. In the ten years since his 1978 escape, it is assumed that either the Smith's Grove facility had now become a maximum-security ward, or that it was decided that Michael's comatose state made him no longer a threat requiring maximum security. While in the back of a transfer ambulance, Michael was slowly coming to. The two attendants were discussing the fact that Michael Myers was now under state and federal watch. They also revealed that the only known living relative in his hometown was a young niece. He had awakened just in time to hear this, and decided to escape once again, ten years to the date of his first breakout. On this trip, Michael Myers never made it back to the sanitarium.
When Michael Myers is arrested (for the first time in the saga) by civilian police officials, Haddonfield's Sheriff Benjamin Meeker explains to Michael's niece Jamie that he will be transferred to "a maximum-security facility, where he'll stay until the day he dies."
It is assumed that neither the Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium, Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium, nor the Litchfield ward (alluded to in the television version of Halloween) is this place. Based on the sheriff's tone of voice and his words, it is perhaps a facility more adapt to the indefinite confinement of dangerous criminals. It may be a prison controlled by the federal government. The Smith's Grove sanitarium is never mentioned in this Halloween installment.
For the first time (and last, as of today) since the first Halloween film, the Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium returns on-screen and plays a much larger role. According to this sixth installment, Dr. Terence Wynn was the reason Michael Myers was confined to Smith's Grove when he was age six. Apparently Michael had heard a voice compelling him to kill his promiscuous teenage sister Judith, resulting in his confinement.
In the preceding installment, a mysterious "man in black" was trailing Michael and Dr. Loomis on October 31, 1989. Six years later, on Halloween 1995, he is revealed as Dr. Wynn, whom has secretly been the leader of a Druidic organization held in the subterranean levels of the sanitarium. The organization, testing and thus failing in DNA and in vitro fertilisation experiments, relied on physically impregnating Michael's niece Jamie, now age fifteen, in hopes of continuing Michael's bloodline. Their intent was to pass his "curse of Thorn"- the bizarre and (usually unaccepted) reason for his violent nature- onto the baby boy whom was born on the night of Monday October 30, 1995.
In the series, the sanitarium and its administrator are first seen as benevolent, but still ineffectual. In this installment, they both are now dark and malevolent having purely demonic ambitions.
In the prologue credits of this film, information in the form of documents typed under a "Warren County Sanitarium" letter-head are shown in the late Dr. Loomis' former bedchamber / office. In one of the documents, it reveals that 1605 Shady Lane is the sanitarium's Smith's Grove address.
A newspaper article that can also be seen reads as follows:
- Child Murderer Escapes Mental Hospital- Michael Myers, criminally insane killer, age 21, is reported missing from Warren County Sanitarium.
Laurie Strode as Keri Tate explains to her boyfriend / high school counselor Will Brennan that her brother "sat in a sanitarium for fifteen years, waiting for me." It is assumed that Michael was waiting for his younger sister to turn age seventeen. This phrasing of course refers to the sanitarium as seen in Halloween and known by its full name in Halloween II.
Questions
- Even though Dr. Loomis felt that Michael was so dangerous, were the staff and other patients simply not afraid of him?
- Was Michael allowed to have contact with anyone including the other patients?
- Dr. Loomis stated to Marion that for fifteen years, Michael never spoke. But, Dr. Loomis could not have always been with Michael for each day since being at Smith's Grove. If Michael was perhaps allowed to congregate with other patients, could he have spoken only to them?
- Was the sanitarium adapted to teaching their patients skills and crafts?
- Was Michael given certain freedoms while held in captivity? We know Dr. Loomis had tried for seven years, but failed, to see if Michael be incarcerated indefinitely. Could Michael have roamed the halls, walked outdoors, or even taught to read and write?
- What facilities did the sanitarium possess? Could it have possessed a gymnasium, a swimming pool for exercise and therapy purposes, a courtyard, schoolrooms for general education, basketball and tennis courts, or even a driving range?
- If the sanitarium was relatively safe, and their patients were no real threat to society, could the sanitarium been able to possess any of the facilities mentioned above?
- Was the sanitarium part of a campus or was it just one large building?
- Was the sanitarium an open unit facility?
- Was the sanitarium also a prison?
- How did Michael behave when he learned of his parents' deaths?
- How did Michael feel when he saw the Strode's take Laurie away before she could talk to him? Sad? Angry? Vengeful?
- Did Michael ever want Laurie to come visit him?
- Could one reason why Michael escaped was to take revenge because Laurie never came to visit? Or was their some other reason, with being deranged not one of them? Remember in Halloween: Twenty Years Later that Laurie said Michael "sat in a sanitarium for fifteen years, waiting for me." It can be assumed that he was waiting for his only living sibling to turn age seventeen. But, could he have waited for Laurie hoping that when she came to visit, he could convince her to help him escape?
Trivia
- Smith's Grove is also the name for a city in ((Kentucky)), U.S.A.
