Netflix's Ratched succeeded in doing what American Horror Story: Asylum failed to do. Both Ryan Murphy shows told a scary story focused around a psychiatric hospital. But where AHS: Asylum deviated away from its subject matter, Ratched revealed the twisted inner workings of a psychiatric hospital at its time. Since each series has the same star, creator and similar subject matters, Ratched has of course received multiple comparisons to Asylum.

On RatchedMurphy seamlessly deploys the style he perfected on AHS. Each season of the horror anthology series sees its scares drawn from one singular source. Asylum doesn't follow that method, making it overloaded and unfocused. Ratched stays contained far better than its spiritual predecessor. In a way, the Netflix series is like an American Horror Story: Asylum do-over for Murphy. It's a tighter story with a stronger voice on the issues Murphy tried to address in AHS. That makes it the scarier horror show between the two.

RELATED: Ratched Is More Like Hitchcock Than It Is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ratched Mildred Edmund

The similarities between each show are striking. Each attempt to take a stand on the poor treatment of LGBTQ people and those with mental illnesses in the 1940s. But Asylum loses its footing with the addition of one outlandish element — aliens. AHS oozes camp, but the show sometimes takes it a step too far. Murphy added the extraterrestrials for shock value, but doing so distracted the show from its core purpose. The aliens completely took the audience out of the show, making it one of the weakest seasons to date.

Ratched stays the course. It helps that the Netflix show draws its inspiration from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is pretty much confined to a psychiatric hospital. Ratched has no choice but to do the same, so it really digs into the setting and the people that populate it on a daily basis. Because of that, the Netflix show is able to effectively explore the horrors of the human mind.

RELATED: Ratched's Mind-Scrambling Ending, Explained

Lana Winters AHS Asylum

Ratched explores the frightening themes that Asylum should have dug into. The show demonstrates the atrocities that humans are capable of inflicting on one another, and doesn't need to rely on gimmicks like aliens to muster up scares. It does so with violence, depictions of the horrific excuses for mental health care in the 1940s and the cruel way people treat each other.

The Netflix show is focused on showing Murphy's style and his cast's strong performances. Those elements lend their hand to taking a stand against the era's treatment of LGBTQ people and those with mental illnesses, such as Sophie Okonedo's Charlotte. It's a horror show with substance. Asylum, on the other hand, is empty. It relies too heavily on trying to be scary without building a meaningful plot. A horror show needs meat beyond scary elements to be a successful show. Asylum didn't achieve this, but Ratched does — and it shows.

KEEP READING: How Ratched Sets Up Season 2