Session 9
Dir: Brad Anderson. Starring David Caruso, Stephen Gevedon, Paul Guilfoyle, and Josh Lucas. 2001
Interesting that the most contemporary movie on this list uses one of horror’s oldest standards – the spooky building – as an essential part of its eerie charm. It’s what this building is, or was, however, that adds strength to its power to scare. The Danvers State Hospital is a dilapidated mental hospital that is distressed through with the ghosts of its patients; not in the wandering spirit sense, but in the way the worn out building and abandoned furnishings offer glimpses of the suffering that undoubtedly took place there. A crew has been hired to remove asbestos from the property, each of these men contributing to a single unhealthy personality that is reflected by the building that houses them/it. As work progresses, one of the men discovers patient session tapes in the basement, and begins to listen to the case of a woman with multiple personalities, one of them a murderer. As tensions grow among the members of the crew, the session tapes also increase in intensity until the last message is delivered, warbling like something unearthly on the reel-to-reel session tape. Too subtle for some, Session 9 gives me the creeps by touching on things I sense I’ve only partly begun to understand. It's a very lonely-feeling movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment