@sundancer16 Yes, that was the concept precisely. Also many of these old places were in the middle of nowhere, so they were out of sight, out of mind. Even when open, super grim, a lot of abuse and cruelty went down up to very recently. And they had their own little graveyard too, that makes it a lot more eerie.
Closed down asylums are SCARY. And the background story about why it shut down is always tragic. A town near where I grew up had an asylum closed down and they cruelly just let the people who were staying there roam around on the street for they didn't have anywhere else to go or anyone to care for them. We'd occasionally run into a crazy homeless person now and then and wonder if they were from the asylum that closed their doors and turned mentally ill people out to fend for themselves. It was so sad.