The System of Doctor Goudron

The System of Doctor Goudron (French:Le système du docteur Goudron et du professeur Plume, also released in the United States as The Lunatics) is a 1913 French short silent horror film directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Henri Gouget, Henry Roussel and Renée Sylvaire.

[1] It was adapted from a 1903 Grand Guignol play (also starring Gouget) by André de Lorde, which was itself based on the 1845 short story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether by Edgar Allan Poe.

The plot revolves around a journalist, who, accompanied by his wife, travels to an old castle (complete with moat) which has been turned into an asylum, in the hopes of writing about a new approach to curing patients which is said to be practiced there.

Arriving during a storm, they quickly discover that the inmates have taken over, and that the "cure" to insanity is gouging out an eye and slitting the throat.

Escape seems impossible, and the reporter is drawn to a table to undergo the "cure", but a gust of wind scattering the "doctor's" papers provides a distraction, and, with the help of a sympathetic inmate, the two protagonists are able to flee to safety.