Dr. Stephens runs a secluded sanitarium with a small group of mental patients, one of whom uses the ax that was supposed to be for therapeutic wood-chopping to cut down Dr. Stephens. Now, Dr. Masters is running the asylum alone with her brand-new nurse, who does her best to befriend the eclectic group of patients: the shell-shocked ex-sergeant; the lobotomized Popsicle-sucking child-man; the puritanical former judge; the doom-dealing old woman; the would-be mother to a baby doll; the giggling, clown-haired prankster; the needy nymphomaniac; and the mainly catatonic young woman who occasionally indulges in knife attacks. The pretty young nurse was eager to work with the forward-thinking Dr. Stephens, but finds his successor to be less than welcoming and the hospital to be less than wholesome.