Sending patients Cuckoo

RATCHED Netflix

REMEMBER the terrifying nurse from movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, who terrorised Jack Nicholson’s character, the other psychiatric patients, not to mention half the staff?

Well, that was Mildred Ratched – and this new Netflix series tells her story. We first meet the young nurse in 1947, applying for a job at a leading and experimental psychiatric hospital in Northern California.

Well, not so much applying – more manipulating and blackmailing her way into a position, while posing as the most dedicated and professional nurse possible.

“One of God’s angels,” no less. So what turned her into the monster we all know and hate?

This stylish and sinister series comes from TV powerhouse Ryan Murphy, who created a host of huge shows including Glee, Pose and American Horror Story, and there’s plenty of his theatrical and colourful style in evidence.

Sarah Paulson gives an imposing performance as Ratched.

All repressed menace and highfashion outfits (which we discover are shoplifted), calm in the face of chaos, terrifyingly unemotional, not averse to cold-blooded violence and terrible at sexual role play. This first episode seems relatively tame in terms of the gory violence. Mental and medical torture is hinted at in the trailer, but there’s no doubt it’s coming.

Just because the hospital looks like a five-star hotel full of fancy chandeliers, there’s no way there isn’t a whole lot of creepy weirdness going on behind the scenes.

SCARY Sarah Paulson stars as Nurse Ratched