NATHAN STENBERG, MIKE ATTIE, KATARINA POLJAK | USA | 2026 | 82 MIN | ENGLISH
At a former institution for people with disabilities, a haunted attraction employs disabled performers who confront the site’s abusive past while reclaiming its story on their own terms.
On the grounds of the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital, where generations of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities endured neglect and abuse, a haunted attraction now draws thousands of visitors each year. But The Haunting of Pennhurst is less interested in cheap scares than in what it means to turn a site of real suffering into entertainment. Following the disabled and neurodivergent performers who bring the attraction to life, the documentary reveals a haunt shaped by unusually deliberate rules. Actors are encouraged to build characters from their own experiences, while slurs, mockery, and violence that recreates historical abuse are strictly off-limits. For some performers, stepping into the role of “monster” becomes an act of reclamation in a place once designed to segregate people like them. Yet the contradictions remain. Archival footage, survivor testimony, and the site’s museum continually return the film to Pennhurst’s brutal history, raising difficult questions about memory, exploitation, education, and who gets to tell the story of a place built on suffering. Immersive and unsettling with an original score by Dan Deacon, the film leaves space for viewers to decide whether Pennhurst’s new life is catharsis, commerce, or something more complicated.
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