Session 9: Ten Years Later

 

“I live in the weak and the wounded”

One of my all-time favorite horror flicks just turned ten last month. Session 9 comes from director Brad Andersen, the man who, since 2001, has directed Christian Bale in The Machinist and Woody Harrelson in Transsiberian, both thrillers that Hitchcock would have loved.

On the weekend of August 10, 2001, I had been planning to go see The Others when this odd newspaper ad caught my eye. The film was called Session 9 and its ad was a simple graphic: a figure in a hazmat suit and a rotted chair in a dark rundown hallway. Based on this ad, I ran to see it the next day at the Criterion 6 theatre in Santa Monica and came out feeling…changed.

Not sure what it was, exactly. Maybe it was the story, told as simple and subtle as the ad I saw: an asbestos removal crew cleans the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, as one of the workers becomes obsessed with the audio tapes of a former patient. As these taped sessions grow more intense, the weirdness gets weirder.

It could’ve been the film’s dripping atmosphere which is almost devoid of jump-scares. The entire film was shot on location at Danvers, so the low, wide camera angles and long tracking shots of empty rooms recall the monster that was The Shining’s Overlook Hotel (which Andersen cited as an influence). Andersen establishes mood with periods of no dialogue and only tone music. Masterful sound design and picture editing implies a building, underlying violence waiting to happen. Session 9 was also one of the first films to be shot in 24P HD video, so its occasional video artifacts lend to the realism of the story instead of detracting from it.

It also could have been the subtle, solid performances of leads Peter Mullan and David Caruso whose longtime friendship begins to burn as Mullan’s character becomes affected by his work in the hospital. Also solid is the supporting cast of Stephen Gevedon, Josh Lucas and Brendan Sexton III as Mullan’s crew and Paul Guilfoyle as Danvers’ building manager.

Looking back at this film over the last ten years, I think what really struck me most was the overall combination of these elements as a whole. The film’s subtle simplicity first struck me with the ad and stayed consistent throughout til I left the theatre in a daze. Amazing what you can do with minimal special effects, an intriguing storyline that gradually unfolds, and a group of talented people behind and in front of camera.

Ten years later, Session 9 still proves that less can be more and the scariest images are those that we create in our minds.