From Watchmen to Riverdale, A Short History of Riverview Hospital

In an upcoming episode of Riverdale, audiences will be spirited away to Southside High School, a location that will likely appear familiar to TV and movie fans.

The location? Riverview Hospital, a mental health facility where some of the decommissioned buildings are still available to TV and film crews to shoot in. THe plan at present appears to be to raze the remaining unused buildings so that they can build more structures that can be used to care for patients, but since as early as 1980, at least some of Riverview’s buildings have been seen the big and small screen.

These are really just the tip of the iceberg. To do a complete history of Riverview in entertainment would require a book — and even to do so just in geek entertainment would likely require many hours of research and a lot of space.

But which were our favorites? Read on, and hit us up @comicbook if you have more to add to the conversation.

THE X-FILES

The buildings at Riverview have appeared in the world of The X-Files multiple times, both in episodes of the beloved TV series and in scenes from the 2008 feature film The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

More specifically, per Week in Weird:

Crease Clinic and other Riverview buildings were used for a number of episodes including the pilot episode, “Eve” (Season 1 Ep. 11), “The Calusari” (Season 2 Ep. 21), “Teso Dos Bichos” (Season 3 Ep. 18), and “The End” (Season 5 Ep. 20).

The Centre Lawn building, shown in the photo above, is one of the most filmed locations in Vancouver, having appeared in numerous productions including Happy Gilmore, Kingdom Hospital, and Supernatural. This is not the last time you’ll see it on this list.

PSYCH

Numerous buildings have served numerous purposes in a variety of Psych episodes.

Funny enough, the “haunted asylum” that inspired the episode “Scary Sherry: Bianca’s Toast” was apparently Riverview. We can’t find a reliable reference to the Psych pilot having filmed there online, but the commentary tracks indicate that the episode was constructed around a local urban legend after they filmed a portion of the pilot in an abandoned mental hospital.

Given the hosptal’s history with Psych, it seems almost impossible to imagine that they shot the pilot in an unrelated abandoned/”haunted” asylum, so Riverview was likely what served as the Santa Barbara Police Department in that episode. If so, it served as the inspiration for “Scary Sherry,” in addition to various Riverview buildings appearing in “Santabarbaratown 2,” “Psych: The Musical,” and maybe a dozen other episodes.

The tunnels under the California Theater in Psych: The Musical were in fact the same tunnels explored in The X-Files episode “Home Again.”

WATCHMEN

The East Lawn Building makes a cameo in the opening credits, in which the National Guard squared off against student protestors.

A much bigger role goes to the Crease Clinic (seen in Psych), which serves as the military basewhere Jon Osterman becomes Doctor Manhattan.

THE ARROWVERSE

The tunnels around Riverview have served as an ideal setting for scenes in Arrow, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

Legends, in particular, seems to have filmed much of the season 1 episode in which the team visits a 1980s Soviet prison at Riverview, as pictured above.

Last season, it also appeared on Arrow when Laurel and Thea were searching for Andy Diggle in an abandoned mental hospital.

SMALLVILLE

You remember when Clark was in the mental hospital, and eventually Martian Manhunter broke him out and flew him throught the window?

…Well, that mental hospital is this mental hospital.

We guess Riverview just has a “decrepit mental hospital” kind of look to it, becuase frankly there’s an awful lot of disused or low-quality mental hospitals on the show’s resume.

RIVERDALE

In episode 6, Jughead and Betty made their way to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, where troubled girls could live safely and Polly had been committed against her will.

That building is actually the Centre Lawn Building, referenced above, and it’s where members of the press interviewed cast members during a set visit which took place during the Riverdale finale.

No, Riverdale isn’t headed back to the Sisters. Rather, in the next two weeks sometime, that same building will be re-dressed and used as Southside High School — possibly one of the last “roles” it will ever play before being torn down so that the property can return to its original purpose of caring for the mentally ill.