Session 9
| Session 9 | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster for Session 9 | |
| Directed by | Brad Anderson |
| Written by | Brad Anderson, Stephen Gevedon |
| Produced by | John Sloss, Dorothy Aufiero, David Collins, Michael Williams |
| Starring | David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Paul Guilfoyle, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III |
| Cinematography | Uta Briesewitz |
| Edited by | Brad Anderson |
| Music by | Climax Golden Twins |
| Distributed by | USA Films |
Release date | 2001 |
Running time | 97 min (USA) |
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
Session 9 is a 2001 psychological horror film directed by Brad Anderson. The film takes place in and around the Danvers State Mental Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts.
Synopsis
Danvers State Hospital has been closed since 1985. Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan), the owner of a small asbestos removal company, makes a bid to remove the asbestos, ambitiously claiming he can finish the job in just two weeks in order to get the contract; Gordon is desperately in need of money. He is also a new father, and the stress of work and parenthood have been causing problems between Gordon and his wife, Wendy. As Gordon initially tours the hospital, he comes across a dark hallway with a wheelchair in the middle. He hears a ghostly voice say, "Hello... Gordon."
Gordon's team is small, but eclectic. Mike (Stephen Gevedon, also the film's screenwriter) is an angry, acerbic law school drop-out. Phil (David Caruso), Gordon's second in command, is filled with bitterness after losing his long-time girlfriend to Hank (Josh Lucas), another team member who likes to rub that fact in Phil's face. Hank dreams of hitting the big time, and wants to leave his job to run a casino. Jeff, Gordon's nephew (Brendan Sexton III), is the youngest member of the crew, and suffers from severe nyctophobia.
The job affects each of the men in different ways. While checking on an electrical problem, Mike discovers a box marked "evidence." At the same time, Hank and Gordon are wounded, creating a foreboding atmosphere. Inside, Mike finds a collection of taped interviews with former patient number 444, Mary Hobbs, labeled Session 1 through 9. In between working, he listens and becomes increasingly engrossed in the interviews, which detail the patient's multiple personality disorder. Most of the subject's personalities are harmless and child-like. Princess is completely innocent and talks nonstop. Billy sees everything. They all refer to another personality named Simon, someone they don't want to talk about. Throughout the sessions, it is revealed that something terrible happened involving a knife and a China doll one Christmas in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, Hank finds a stash of coins and personal items that have been hidden away since the asylum closed. Unaware that the items came from the furnace in the morgue, Hank returns late one night to steal the artifacts. Upon leaving he follows sounds and finds an empty peanut butter jar, the same as the kind Gordon brought home the first night. However upon investigating he is attacked by an unseen assailant and disappears.
When Hank disappears, Gordon begins to suspect that Phil may have murdered him for stealing his girlfriend. Others postulate that he ran away to find his fortune in Miami. Hank, however, is soon found, wounded with the tool that he used to remove the coins, only able to mutter, "What are you doing here?". Jeff runs to tell the others of his discovery and they go to investigate. However, Hank is gone when they all go to look. Gordon believes Jeff when he sees a coin dropped upon the ground, which have been appearing mysteriously all over the place. The co-workers split up in order to find him. One by one, the team members are ambushed by an unseen attacker. Everyone is soon expelled into a frenzy of desperation and terror as they are expelled into various corners of the asylum. The tunnels, the sub-tunnels, the stairwell, etc.
Gordon finds himself alone in a room of the asylum with pictures of his wife and child affixed to the wall with the red substance used earlier in the film to mark asbestos, some possibly covered with blood. A short flashback sequence reveals that, after his initial inspection of the hospital, Gordon went home and murdered his wife and daughter after being accidentally splashed with boiling water. He then proceeded to murder all of his colleagues in succession (committing the murders in a dissociative state and later becoming convinced that Phil was responsible). Gordon starts crying and apologizing as it zooms to the roof. As the film ends, the recording of Session 9 is heard. Simon, the evil personality, finally speaks. He reveals that Mary murdered her brother after he scared her, which caused her to severely injure herself by falling over onto her china doll, then proceeded to kill the rest of her family. The doctor asks: "And where do you live, Simon?" In the same voice that Gordon heard in the hospital at the beginning of the film, we hear Simon say, "I live in the weak and the wounded, Doc." [1]
Reception
Session 9 garnered mostly positive reviews from critics. Most critics praised the films dark and creepy atmosphere and lack of gore.[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "a spine-tingler" and praised Brad Anderson's direction.[3] Bloody Disgusting ranked the film fifth in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "Brad Anderson couldn’t have set his nerve-wracking, slow-burning horror opus in a better one: an abandoned New England mental hospital... Session 9 isn’t just a cheap, hack ‘n’ slash, instantly-forgettable type horror film, but a psychologically probing, deeply unsettling journey off the edge and into the abyss of the human mind. The film is old-school in a lot of ways, particularly in that it doesn’t just rely on cheap shocks to scare the living daylights out of us. Indeed, the scariest moments in the film are those that involve disembodied voices, eerie visuals and the mere suggestion that something horrible is about to happen. This is the stuff bad dreams are made of."[4]
Interpretations
In reviewing the film for the 2003 edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Ellen Datlow takes the view that Simon is not necessarily an alternate personality of the former patient Mary, but a malignant genius loci.[5] Her review also points out that the deleted scenes included on the DVD help bring out an added understanding of the narrative.
The deleted scenes display a demon hidden within the walls of the asylum, clearly reinforcing the "demonic" spirit interpreted by Datlow. There is also a homeless woman who witnesses all the murders and finally takes justice out upon Gordon in an alternate ending.
References
- ^ Fall Frights: SESSION 9 (Film Review)
- ^ http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/session_9/
- ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/5947923/review/5947924/session_9
- ^ "00's Retrospect: Bloody Disgusting's Top 20 Films of the Decade...Part 4". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 2010-01-03.
- ^ Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling - The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection Page lxxxviii Macmillan, 2003 ISBN 0312314256 Accessed via Google Books August 27, 2008