Session 9 (2002)

“Session 9” is without a doubt my favorite film of the last couple years, and stands as a complete antithesis to the current trend of horror movies out today. As told by director Brad Anderson, “most horror films today are MTV styled films with teens being chased by a masked killer to the tune of Limp Bizkit blaring on the soundtrack, while every aspect of the story is thrown directly at the viewer”. In a sense, I like to call “Session 9” a true thinking man’s horror film. If you have no patience for allowing a story to develop or are the type of moviegoer who needs every detail spelled out for you, this ain’t gonna be your type of flick.

The story concerns a five-man crew of asbestos removal workers that are cleaning out an abandoned mental institution, the Danvers State Mental Hospital. Danvers is an actual huge, brooding building located north of Boston that closed its doors for business back in 1982. I’m going to be real light here on the plot details, but eventually some weird shit starts to go down between the characters and the building, though not in the way you may expect. “13 Ghosts” this ain’t folks.

The emphasis here is on developing mood, atmosphere, and tension, and it does take it’s time in setting things up. Some felt that it actually took a little to long, but I felt the pacing was perfect for the style of the film. For anyone not suffering from attention deficit disorder, there are loads of little subtleties in the story to pick up on. I’ve seen this one over six times and come away with something new each and every time. As I said earlier, the emphasis is on mood and atmosphere, enhanced greatly by shooting the film directly in the abandoned Danvers Hospital and not on some Hollywood sound stage. As noted by almost everyone involved in the film, the hospital is “the” other actor in the film, and is truly a spooky ass place. The film does a terrific job of picking up the buildings eerie ambiance, with loads of nifty wide pans of the buildings dank corridors, stairways and the like. That is one place I would not go into alone at night, no fucking way. It was also nice to see a horror film that featured zero dumb characters that just have to wander off alone down some spooky hallway or what have you. Most genre clichés were abandoned, and it was truly refreshing to see a movie rely on solid acting, story, and atmosphere for a change. A top-notch flick that comes highly recommended.