Briarcliff Manor

Briarcliff Manor is a fictional mental health facility featured in the FX Network television series American Horror Story. It is the main setting featured in season two of the show, American Horror Story: Asylum. It first appeared in the season premiere, "Welcome to Briarcliff".

Description & History
Briarcliff Manor is a closed down mental asylum located in Wasaugee, Massachusetts. During the 1930s it was a tuberculosis hospital, but was converted into an asylum for the criminally insane in the 1960s. By the modern era, the hospital had long since been shut down.

1960s
In 1964, Briarcliff was run by a woman named Sister Jude Martin. She reluctantly worked alongside a state-appointed experimental surgeon named Arthur Arden, of whom she kept in very low regard. Arden felt an equal measure of contempt towards Sister Jude, and felt that she only served to interfere with his experiments. Doctor Arden had many interests at the hospital, and felt that the patients represented the perfect stock for his experiments. He was responsible for cultivating a race of bizarre creatures that lived in a habitat outside the building on the hospital grounds.

The present
In the present, two thrillseekers named Leo and Teresa Morrison came to the abandoned ruins of Briarcliff as part of their ongoing expedition to tour the most haunted places in America. They explored the dark corridors of the asylum and even had sex on one of the electro-shock tables. Teresa recounted the legend of the serial killer known as Bloody Face. They could not have expected or even been remotely prepared when Bloody Face suddenly appeared and attacked them. He ripped off Leo's arm and stabbed him in the chest. Teresa tried to fight back and briefly incapacitated Bloody Face. However, two other intruders, both wearing Bloody Face masks came into the building and shot them both dead. Only then did they discover that the true Bloody Face was still very much alive.

Residents
Patients
 * Kit Walker - Alleged serial killer; "Bloody Face"
 * Lana Winters - Investigative reporter; Lesbian
 * Grace Bertrand - Murdered her father and stepmother.
 * Jed Potter - Possessed by a demon; Died from failed exorcism.
 * Shelley - Nymphomaniac; Mutilated by Doctor Arden.
 * Pepper - Microcephalic; Accused of murdering her niece.

Staff
 * Sister Jude Martin - Administrator
 * Monsignor Timothy Howard - Church administrator
 * Arthur Arden - Chief surgeon
 * Sister Mary Eunice McKee - Nun
 * Oliver Thredson - Psychiatrist
 * Frank McCann - Security guard

Others
 * Leo Morrison - Thrillseeker
 * Teresa Morrison - Thrillseeker
 * Bloody Face - Serial killer
 * Cooper - Bloody Face imposter
 * Cooper's friend - Bloody Face imposter

Notes & Trivia

 * Episode 2x04, "I Am Anne Frank (Part 1)", establishes that Briarcliff is located in Wasaugee. It is unclear whether Wasaugee is a city, township or county.