That said, Session 9 is a wonderful piece of filmmaking and a chance to watch some brilliantly understated character acting.
The star of the show is undoubtedly the Danvers Mental Hospital itself. The hospital is a real institute that was closed down in the 1980s and – according to the production notes – several of the incidents related in the movie are based on actual events that occurred there.
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 Director: Brad Anderson
Cast: David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Steven Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III, Paul Guilfoyle
Classification: 16
Running Time: 100 min
Synopsis: Called in to remove hazardous asbestos from the soon to be renovated Danvers Mental Hospital - an imposing and eerie structure - a group of workmen discover that everything is not quite what it seems, as strange and inexplicable events start to occur… |
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It is an incredibly eerie building with the perfect setting for a haunted house story, and when coupled with the creepy cinematography, strange camera angles and careful juxtaposition of light and dark, it is a truly frightening edifice.
This is no slasher movie with a bunch of screaming teenagers. This is about a group of young to middle-aged blue collar working men, who exude an air of “been there, done that”, until the hospital begins to get under their skin and affects them in strange ways.
The characters are also well developed. Gordy is the crew chief, with a wife and baby daughter and a hatful of marital problems. Phil is the guy who tries to keep everything together, but he also hides his pain at losing his girlfriend in a cloud of marijuana smoke.
Hank is the cocky gambler who stole Phil's woman, while Mike is the rich kid who gets a kick out of manual labour, and whose discovery of a doctor's tapes of sessions with a patient (hence the film's title) is the first in a chain of events that opens up the dark heart of Danvers.
Finally there is Jeff, Gordy's young nephew, who is the fall guy for the older men, and whose fear of the dark is cruelly exposed in the menacing surroundings.
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Phil (David Caruso) tries to hold it all together, but events go in a direction he cannot foresee. |
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Session 9 is a film that explores the darkness that hides in everyone's mind, the fears and terrors that lurk just beneath the surface of our bright and modern world, and it shows what happens when someone plunges into those depths.
This is not a horror movie in the truest sense of the word. It is a chilling psychological drama, patterned in the vein of earlier classics like The Shining and Don't Look Now.
It slowly builds a sense of dread and menace – you know something is going to happen, you just don't know when – and the true horror comes from the fact that nothing that occurs is unbelievable. It is all grounded in reality.
It has been a long time since a film in this genre could be described as a “thinking man's horror”, but Session 9 is all that and more.
You may or may not enjoy it, but I can guarantee that it will at the very least leave you feeling distinctly uneasy.
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