Session 9 Review
By Joe Lozito
Rental Hospital
Four asbestos workers are hired to clean the hazardous material out of an insane asylum abandoned 15 years earlier. That's a pretty scary premise, which is what makes "Session 9" such a disappointment. Filmed in stark digital video by Brad Anderson (180 degrees from his debut, "Next Stop Wonderland") the film takes place over the course of one harrowing week in the Danvers Mental Hospital.
The four men are led by Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan, who looks like a Scottish William Petersen) a lifetime "fiber worker" who, as is always the case, "really needs this job". Shortly after his team begins the monumental task of cleaning the asylum in one week (it looks like it would take months) tempers start to flare. But strangely, the tension in the film does not revolve around any stalking serial killer or ghostly moaning. Instead, the film wants the inherent spookiness of the setting to overtake the unsettle the audience. Unfortunately, it takes too long for the story to achieve that.
By shooting the film in digital video, Mr. Anderson is able to achieve a documentary feel which helps the film by echoing the current glut of reality TV, but by the same token it makes the film seem familiar. Too often the shots of the men wandering dark halls with flashlights feel stolen directly from "The Blair Witch Project" or Mtv's "Fear", the latter of which has episodes which share the premise of "Session". And, in all honestly, the premise itself is awfully close to "The Shining". But that shouldn't have stopped "Session 9" from being an above-average horror movie. Unfortunately, the script, co-written by Mr. Anderson, never even scratches the surface of the thrills that the premise could have provided.
In the end, "Session 9" is feels like a let down, and its last act is a descending spiral of plot holes and melodrama. Mr. Anderson is certainly a capable director and the cast - including David Caruso, who can make "What's for lunch?" sound like an ultimatum - gives the film their all, but the script doesn't give them a ghost of a chance of scaring up any lasting thrills.
