Evil Psychiatrists & Texas in the Movies?

August 22, 2006 4:03 AM

I'm looking for movies featuring evil/bad psychiatrists. I'm also looking for movies that feature good (West) Texas accents. An example of the first would be Michael Caine in "Quills,"an example of the second would be Sissy Spacek in "Badlands." Bonus points for contemporary time frame and female actors, but not necessary. Comedies are fine too.
posted by rainbaby to Media & Arts (34 answers total)

Silence of the Lambs.
posted by nicwolff at 4:27 AM on August 22, 2006

Ooh, how about Amanda Peet's character in Saving Silverman?
posted by nicwolff at 4:29 AM on August 22, 2006

And Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
posted by nicwolff at 4:33 AM on August 22, 2006

Sean Bean in The Island.
posted by zoomorphic at 4:35 AM on August 22, 2006

Patrick Stewart in Conspiracy Theory

all three leads in Fraility (cause that's where they are all from.)
posted by Dagobert at 4:44 AM on August 22, 2006

If you want a bad psychiatrist, try "What's New, Pussycat".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:54 AM on August 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

Scarecrow (Dr. Jonathan Crane) from "Batman".
posted by amtho at 5:22 AM on August 22, 2006

Argh, didn't parse nicwolff's comment correctly.
posted by amtho at 5:23 AM on August 22, 2006

Someone's got to mention the name of that awful movie about a woman child psychologist who offers to treat a couple's problem child in order to infiltrate the couple's life and mess it all up - or something like that. It's driving me mad.
posted by ed\26h at 5:35 AM on August 22, 2006

She may not have had full qualifications, but how about Nurse Ratched?
posted by hot soup girl at 6:08 AM on August 22, 2006

Dead Ringers.
posted by desuetude at 6:11 AM on August 22, 2006

Matchstick Men, if "bad" includes being a con artist.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 6:33 AM on August 22, 2006

Derek Jacobi's hypnotizing antiques dealer in Dead Again could be seen as a kind of bad therapist.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:35 AM on August 22, 2006

Dr. Robert Elliott in Dressed to Kill, played by, you guessed it, Michael Caine.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:41 AM on August 22, 2006

Kiefer Sutherland's character in Freeway? Though I guess he was a school counselor. It is unclear the extent of his training.
posted by unknowncommand at 6:42 AM on August 22, 2006

For the accent, Frances McDormand in the Cohen brothers' excellent Blood Simple
posted by Neiltupper at 6:49 AM on August 22, 2006

A good one: Dr Berger in Margaret and Bernard Chenowith from Six Feet Under? They're not evil, but they're definitely bad in the sense of professionally shithouse.

And here's a Wikipedia list of fictional psychiatrists. The two 'bad' (if not exactly evil) ones on that list that jump out are Dr Marvin Monroe and Dr Zachary Smith. But again, they're from TV rather than the movies.
posted by hot soup girl at 7:10 AM on August 22, 2006

Um, weird... there are words in my last comment that I didn't type: "A good one: Dr Berger in". Oddness.
posted by hot soup girl at 7:12 AM on August 22, 2006

Dr. Leo Marvin from What About Bob becomes progressively more unhinged/bad/evil as the movie progresses.
posted by The Confessor at 7:20 AM on August 22, 2006

In Silence of the Lambs/Manhunter/Red Dragon, the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane is run by the rather unsavoury Frederick Chilton. But apparently he wasn't a certified doctor.
posted by hot soup girl at 7:21 AM on August 22, 2006

Best answer: Marcia Gay Harden played an unethical therapist in First Wives Club, stealing Diane Keaton's husband while treating her.
posted by Sara Anne at 7:47 AM on August 22, 2006

I couldn't tell a real West Texas accent from a fake one, but three places to look for them? Lone Star, Lone Star State of Mind, Friday Night Lights and Glory Road.
posted by Sara Anne at 7:52 AM on August 22, 2006

Oops, that's FOUR, not three. I can count without using my fingers and toes!
posted by Sara Anne at 7:53 AM on August 22, 2006

The movie The Rookie features several good (to my mid-Atlantic ear) West Texas accents, particularly Rachel Griffiths's.
posted by cerebus19 at 7:54 AM on August 22, 2006

"What about Bob" with Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray might fit the bill.
posted by Vindaloo at 8:00 AM on August 22, 2006

Best answer: For the accent maybe try the following that were set / shot in West Texas:

Giant
Dancer, Texas pop 81
Last Picture Show
Friday Night Lights (mentioned above)

For some great female Texas accents (but not specifically WEST Texas - maybe more of a hybrid with other parts):

The Thin Blue Line (documentary; excellent Dallas area accents)
Tender Mercies (Tess Harper - Central / North Texas)
Raggedy Man (Sissy Spacek - South Texas)
Urban Cowboy (Debra Winger - Southeast Texas)
Places in the Heart - Sally Fields - Central Texas)

And I second Frances McDormand in Blood Simple.

Of course people are going to disagree because Texas accents are often all over the place and influenced by their borders (North Texas and Oklahoma / Arkansas, East Texas and Louisiana, South Texas and Mexico etc.)

I personally also love the twangs in King of the Hill.
posted by dog food sugar at 8:18 AM on August 22, 2006

For evil/bad psychologists, I think the father in Peeping Tom qualifies, as well as a couple of the characters in DePalma's hommage/rip off of Peeping Tom, Raising Caine.
posted by pasici at 8:38 AM on August 22, 2006

Don't know how good the accents are, but Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean takes place in the town where Giant was filmed in West Texas. Several of the actors were in the stage production, so I imagine they had done some good dialect work.
posted by witchstone at 9:03 AM on August 22, 2006

The electric shock therapist from the beginning of Return to Oz.
posted by Iridic at 10:35 AM on August 22, 2006

Harold and Maude has a bad/funny shrink. Although he is just a minor supporting character.
posted by marsha56 at 10:36 AM on August 22, 2006

If memory serves, Martin & Orloff was about a guy with a bad psychiatrist. It was also a comedy.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:40 PM on August 22, 2006

The electric shock therapist from the beginning of Return to Oz.

Oh my God, I'd completely forgotten about this. It terrified me. (Actually, much of that movie terrified me.)

Also, wasn't Sharon Stone's character a psychiatrist in Basic Instinct? Maybe?

And there's an episode of Law&Order: Criminal Intent guest starring Brent Spiner and Margaret Colin in which they play a married couple who are also sadistic psychiatrists. (Season 3, Episode 15, 'Shrink-Wrapped.')
posted by inging at 2:10 PM on August 22, 2006

John Leguizamo was in a movie called Whispers in the Dark with Annabella Sciorra, Jamey Sheridan, Anthony LaPaglia, and Alan Alda, and there are a mess of effed up psychiatrists in the thing.
posted by cgc373 at 3:26 PM on August 22, 2006