‘I live in the weak and the wounded…’
Session 9 came out at the wrong time. Arriving in the summer of 2001 when horror cinema was still in its post-Scream malaise, The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project had redefined what horror cinema meant to the wider cinematic community and with the Torture Porn era just around the corner, there wasn’t really space for a slow-burn meditative horror experience like the one laid out by first time director Brad Anderson here. Had this film come out in the post-Get Out prestige horror era, it would surely be hailed as a classic of the genre…
Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan), the owner of an asbestos removal company, is hired to clean up the infamous Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts. After recruiting his usual team of Phil (David Caruso), Mike (Stephen Gevedon) and Hank (Josh Lucas), as well as his nephew, Jeff (Brendan Sexton), Gordon reveals there is an extra $10,000 available if they can get the job finished early. When the pressure of the looming deadline, coupled with the ominous atmosphere of the asylum itself begins to become overbearing, however, it appears as if Gordon and his team are starting to crack.
It’s a difficult thing to maintain an ominous sense of dread across 100 punishing minutes and it’s even more difficult to then provide a pay off that feels satisfying at the end of it all. Session 9, through a combination of a series of assured performances, most notably from Mullen and Caruso, and Anderson’s ability to nurture an overbearing and pervading sense that something very bad is going to happen, achieves true horror greatness. There are moments in this film that will stay with you. Not just the bombastic conclusion. Sometimes it’s just the way the sunlight hits an old chair at the end of a dark corridor. And now I’m scared all over again.
Session 9 has now received its flowers in the cult horror community and has been recognised as one of the most effective horror films of the 21st century. It is still yet to receive the plaudits that it truly deserves from the wider cinematic community, however, but for those of us who know… we won’t forget Gordon Fleming’s trip to Danvers anytime soon.
