Haunted Asylum

Next stop, the dank Victorian corridors of "Session 9"'s (2001) Danvers State Mental Hospital. (And yes, we realize a haunted asylum is technically still a haunted hospital, so write your own list next time, alright?) Writer-director Brad Anderson ("The Machinist," "Happy Accidents") was, along with George Lucas, one of the first to employ 24p hi-def cameras for this freaky ensemble chiller, about a five-man asbestos cleaning crew so desperate to get a high-paying gig that they bid to douche out the dilapidated insides of an abandoned Massachusetts asylum in exactly one week. The team includes Peter "My Name is Joe, but you may call me Peter" Mullan, David "The failed movie star who scurried back to TV" Caruso, Josh "No relation to that neckless guy mentioned above" Lucas and Brendan "I'm gonna rape you, Dawn Weiner" Sexton III. Effectively unsettling in its widescreen black holes and ominous, out-of-earshot skronks (think "Blair Witch Project" with more technical skill), the haunted aspect comes more from audience expectations: when one of the crewmembers finds lobotomy screws and starts listening to warped recordings of a particularly disturbed patient's old psychotherapy sessions, another from the team suddenly disappears. Somewhat betraying its intense tone of shapes-in-the-darkness creepiness, the eventual endgame twist isn't even remotely supernatural, but its blend of old-fashioned suspense feels practically innovative compared to the crap they call American horror today.

Also see: The 1999 remake of "House on Haunted Hill" attempted to up the scary quotient of the William Castle original by making the house in question a shuttered asylum. Fair warning: Geoffrey Rush is very much no Vincent Price.

Haunted School

The four films of the Korean "Whispering Corridors" series are unrelated but for the fact that they're each set in all-girl high schools in which the cruelty of the adolescent social hierarchy and the infamous harshness of the country's school system vie with ghosts and usually win -- the spirits exist like undead echoes of academic trauma, of which there's plenty, given the amount of competition, humiliation and school-related suicides the films show. The titular first installment finds a ghost girl re-enrolling and returning to class again and again, while uncaring teachers fail to even notice; the third (and least successful), "Wishing Stairs," presents a "Monkey's Paw" scenario amongst rival ballet students; the most recent, 2006's "Voice," takes a ghost's-eye view to a string of killings. But it's the second and most stylistically ambitious installment, "Memento Mori," that most memorably splinters its tale into a swirl of disturbing, impressionistic images (including a reoccurring visual theme of wings and trapped birds) of overheated, angsty youth. The film's educational institution becomes caught up in the fractured aftermath of a love affair between two of the girls that ends in one dying and coming back to, it seems, quite literally crush everything in her path -- it's way beyond the usual wandering of creepy hallways at night.

Also see: "Dead Friend," another K-horror film, explores similar dead schoolgirl territory less well.

Haunted Movie Theater

"Goodbye, Dragon Inn" (2003), Tsai Ming-Liang's pensive film about the last night of a famous old Chinese movie theater, is an atypical haunted location: there's little in the way of dead-on fright but lots in the way of slow-burn chills as the reels are projected onto the screen and the employees go about their routine as a pounding rainstorm leaks in from cracks that litter the rooms. Little is said and nothing is accomplished, but it's clear that more than just an old theater is dying (it might be symbolically taking the entire theatrical moviegoing experience with it). With so little communication or interaction between anyone on the screen, the most unsettling thing about the movie might be not knowing who is alive and who is dead and, even worse, who actually cares one way or the other.

Additional photos: "The Ghost of Flight 401," NBC, 1978; "The Devil's Backbone," Sony Pictures Classics, 2001; "Prison," Empire Pictures, 1988; "The Kingdom," October Films, 1994; "Below," Dimension Films, 2002; "The Shining," Warner Bros. Pictures, 1980; "Memento Mori," TLA Releasing, 1999; "Goodbye, Dragon Inn," Wellspring Media, 2003.