Most of the time during the Halloween season, I try to stick to reviewing scary or spooky movies. However, The Good Nurse is a different type of scary and spooky. Especially for those of us that lived in the southeast Pennsylvania and New Jersey area in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Yes, this movie is based on a true story.

Amy (Jessica Chastain) is a single mother working as a nurse in a New Jersey ICU. Despite her strenuous job, Amy tries to hide her heart condition from her bosses and coworkers until her health insurance kicks in. The hospital hires a new nurse, Charles (Eddie Redmayne), to help with the night shift. Suddenly, patients that weren’t fatal begin to die. When all of the hospitals that Charles previously worked at continue to stonewall the police investigation into the patient deaths, Amy steps forward to help catch the man responsible.

This is a story that hit close to home. Not only is my mother a nurse and not only do I live in southeast Pennsylvania, I am also old enough to remember his happening. So watching The Good Nurse had a different type of horror for me. It’s the type where you never know if someone evil could take advantage of you when you are at your most vulnerable. If you have never felt like that before, be thankful. It’s not a good feeling.

There is a lot of backlash nowadays about true crime movies and podcasts and YouTube videos. And I don’t disagree that the victims need to be honored and not exploited. However, I also believe that stories like this need to be told. While it can be difficult to tell the difference between an exploitative movie and a good movie, I think that The Good Nurse is one of the good ones. The main focus of the movie is Amy, the woman who wouldn’t let hospital red tape brush these murders under the rug. She really is the true hero of the story. The one person who risked everything to do the right thing. I wish everyone could be like Amy.