Patient 23's Letchworth Village Experience

Today in the "Patient 23" blog, we will tell you about the cast and crews time spent at the Letchworth Village Asylum.  For previous blogs regarding "Patient 23" you can click on these links: 

What is Patient 23? 

Lt. Triggs Character & Actor Bio.

Since this Saturday, August 31st, the cast and crew will be officially filming "Patient 23", we felt this was the appropriate time to share our experiences of the first day of test shooting, as well as test photos with the cast in their initial concept design outfits, when the cast and crew traveled to Letchworth Village.

For those that don't know what Letchworth Village is, in brief via Wikipedia:

"Letchworth Village was a residential institution located in Rockland County, New York in the hamlet of Thiells built for the physically and mentally disabled of all ages from the newborn to the elderly. Opened in 1911, Letchworth Village at its peak consisted of over 130 buildings spread out over many acres of land.

On February 27, 1950, the first trial case of the polio vaccine in the United States was administered to an 8-year-old patient.^[1] After the patient suffered no side effects, the vaccine was administered to 19 more of the institution's children.^[2][3]

In 1972, a New York affiliate of ABC News featured Letchworth Village and its appalling conditions in an episode called Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace which helped lead to reform of similar healthcare institutions throughout the United States. But prior media attention and national focus was not enough to save Letchworth Village, and by the mid-1980s, the institution was no longer being adequately funded nor properly managed and residents, including children, continued to be found unclothed, unbathed, and neglected. In addition to rampant abuse among the institution's residents, staff also suffered abuse at the hands of fellow co-workers which included incidents of rape.

In 1996 the institution was permanently closed down, and many of its abandoned structures have since fallen into serious disrepair."

Letchworth Village, primarily the asylum portion of the facility, is believed to be haunted, and with its history we wouldn't doubt it either.  A fact so believed to be true that the Letchworth Village asylum was featured on the Travel Channel's TV show Ghost Adventures during the time of Hurricane Irene (Season 5 Episode 6).

We wanted to explore several locations before solidly locking one for our official day of filming, and Letchworth Village had the look we wanted for the film.
On the day of shooting, while director Anthony Gutierrez and new actor/boom mic handler Christopher Torres were at Letchworth Village filming general exterior scenes from within the asylum ,heavy breathing was picked up on the mic.  Both of them questioned if it were eachother, both denied it of course.
While shooting concept photos with HSL Photography, actor Sid O' Connell got weird vibes from within the asylum and immediately went outside the second that his photos were finished being taken.

While nothing supernatural occured the day of shooting the test footage other than weird vibes and mysterious breathing caught on camera, it wasn't until AFTER the cast and crew left the asylum that odd occurances began.  All the actors involved in the project that were inside the asylum, as well as the director, had a long and strange streak of bad luck that began a day after they left the asylum stemming from work problems to home issues and more.
At first, the cast simply didn't think anything of it, until new actress Veronica Vargas, who portrays Dr. Lisa Riney in "Patient 23", mentioned to them that their string of bad luck could've came from the Letchworth Village asylum.
One actor of the film (who will remain nameless) was the one who intially suggested filming the test footage at Letchworth Village's asylum because he has been inside the facility numerous times, and consistently wanted to go back there for filming though the director and the remainder of the cast stated numerous times they would not film there again.  This struck Veronica Vargas as odd, and bought up the possibly that someone, or something, may have attached themselves to this actor at some point.  Though an outlandish claim, this actor did in fact seek metaphysical aid, only to be told (before mentioning it) that something was in fact attached to him.

Do we believe it to be haunted?  Absolutely, and we would not recommend anyone going to any legimate or rumored haunted facility, even if the proper precautions were taken.  There are just some things in this world, and other worlds, that we are just not meant to be near.
Regardless of what anyone believes, this was definitely an interesting thing that happened to us and we felt we should share with you all, our horde.

In the meantime, for more "Patient 23" don't forget to Like our Facebook Page, and follow us on Twitter at @Patient23 and Instagram at @Patient_23 with constant updates.