"Children of Darkness" is a really 'heavy' documentary about kids suffering from various degrees of mental illness, schizophrenia and behavioral problems. The focus shifts from different teenagers at different institutions around the country where we delve into their tumultuous lives and diverse treatment methods of the time. One of the more 'interesting' reformatories was for non-retarded young adults with hardcore emotional problems where the staff would attempt to rehabilitate them using a variety of bizarre punishments - including making them wear bunny pajamas and shackles if they try to run away or making them fight each other or live in dumpsters for acting out. The film also touches on a hospital in South Beach where the staff went under fire for causing the deaths of several young patients...
Seeing as how it's over 30 years old at this point, "Children of Darkness" is an interesting 'time capsule', of sorts, in how mental illness was handled then. It's a 'rough' one and contains some pretty sad exhibits of full-force schizophrenia and hopelessly defective youths.
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