Bookended by the quote, "Whom God wishes to destroy he first turns mad. (Euripides, 425 BC)", Shock Corridor indicts 1960's society for numerous ills: racism, repressed sexuality, war crimes, nuclear war, and unbridled ambition. Each character's madness is derived from these ills. The only African-American student at an all white college goes crazy and believes that he is a KKK member, terrified that a black man will marry his daughter. One of the creators of the atom bomb regresses to childhood because his adult choices and their consequences are too painful to countenance or to responsibly own. A room of women, diagnosed as nymphos, must possess men, driven by their weakness in society when independent of men.
This alone makes the film interesting, but I'm giving it 5%s because it's also interesting as a film, with oddly cute superimposed images indicating the hallucinations of the main character. While the acting of Constance Towers, as the cabaret-star girlfriend of the main character, is over the top and hysterical, the extreme emotional swings of all the characters artificially indicate the torture everyone experiences.
It's fun to watch and interesting to ponder.
