Most of the spooky, chilling atmosphere comes from the exquisite setting: a decaying, abandoned state asylum with pitch-black tunnels, peeling paint and dripping water, and all the eerie detritus of unenlightened mental-health-care techniques of the past. Into this made-for-terror environment come five men hired to remove the asbestos and other hazardous materials before the city government takes over the building: Peter Mullan as the contractor, wearied by money troubles and a new baby; David Caruso as his good friend; Josh Lucas as a cocky colleague who stole Caruso's girl; Stephen Gevedon (who also co-wrote the script with director Brad Anderson) as the slumming intellectual; and Brendan Sexton III as Mullan's slacker nephew, affectionately referred to as "Mullethead."
Filmed with a handheld camera and with no extraneous music or special effects, the movie feels intimate and immediate. Somewhat like The Blair Witch Project, Session 9 scares you with what you don't see. Sometimes, it's just a noise down a dark corridor; sometimes not even a noise, just the agonizing anticipation of knowing something must be lurking silently in the dark. I think the last movie that so thoroughly freaked me out was The Others. or maybe The Devil's Backbone. The film also plays with your expectations by structuring itself into days and setting itself a timetable that it doesn't keep, which makes the ending feel all the more startling.
Unfortunately, the ending doesn't quite live up to the rest of the movie. A lot of the tantalizing tidbits we're fed along the way turn out to be meaningless, or rather don't have quite as much meaning as we're led to expect. The movie suggests all along either a supernatural explanation or a human one, and its attempt to merge the two at the end feels off somehow.
Director Brad Anderson is always worth watching, though. I loved Next Stop Wonderland, and Happy Accidents was interesting, if flawed. If you like creepy movies, Session 9 is definitely one to check out.
Back to homepage
Reviews A to F
Reviews G to L
Reviews M to R
Reviews S to Z
Search