What makes a movie “scary”? The amount of blood and gore shown onscreen, like in Sinners? The unpredictable jump scares that The Conjuring films execute so well at? Or is it the mere suggestion of an evil, unknownable entity that holds no purpose other than to kill anything and everything in its path?
To me, a good scary movie has a little bit of all of the above, which is why I’m recommending you watch Session 9 this Halloween.
I’ve watched hundreds of horror movies, and this film is one of the few that have genuinely creeped me out. Twenty-four years later, it still terrifies me more than any movie ever made.
What Is ‘Session 9’ About?
Session 9 chronicles a ragtag cleaning crew tasked with clearing out abscesses at an abandoned insane asylum in rural Massachusetts. The leader, Gordon (Peter Mullan), is desperate for cash so he can support his newborn baby and stay-at-home wife. So he hires people he normally wouldn’t employ, like his inexperienced nephew, Jeff (Brendan Sexton III); Phil (David Caruso, years before his CSI: Miami glory days), still recovering from a recent breakup; Hank (Josh Lucas), a smartass gambling addict; and Mike (Stephen Gevedon), a law school dropout who knows the history of the building they’re cleaning.
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A derelict insane asylum is a natural location for a horror movie, so it’s no surprise that the men hear strange noises while working. Is it haunted? Who can tell? To add to the creep factor, Mike discovers a cache of reel-to-reel tapes documenting a shrink’s sessions with a patient with a dissociative personality disorder, Mary Hobbes, who committed a violent crime that led to her incarceration. As Mike becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Mary, his co-workers begin to act strangely, and one of them eventually disappears.
Why the Movie Is So Effective
That’s just a sliver of Session 9’s plot, and part of the fun is gradually finding out what the hell is going on. Session 9 is a slow-burn horror film — the first hour takes its time putting all of the pieces in place, with the last 30 minutes or so pumping up the tension and terror. This is a film that tells more than it shows, but that works because what you’re imagining in your mind is far worse than what you’re actually seeing on screen. When the big reveal happens in the climax, that turns out to be wrong — what’s actually happening is scarier than your wildest nightmares.
Another big reason why Session 9 works so well is its filming location. The movie was shot in a real insane asylum, the Danvers State Asylum, which had been defunct for years when director Brad Anderson shot the film in early 2001. The vaguely Gothic building, with its dilapidated steeples and long, empty hallways, is the ideal setting for any horror film, but particularly for Session 9, which incorporates mental illness both past and present into its storyline. The real asylum doesn’t exist anymore — it was torn down in 2007 to make way for condos — but it is immortalized thanks to this film.
‘Session 9’ Has One of the Scariest Scenes Ever
It’s hard to write about Session 9 without giving away what happens at the end. I won’t spoil that, but I can talk about a key scene that remains one of the scariest I’ve ever seen. It occurs relatively late in the movie, as all hell is about to break loose. One crew member is missing while another begins to act odd, muttering strange, inaudible dialogue that no one but he can understand.
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Jeff and Phil split from the group to go find their missing co-worker. Phil. They descend into the asylum’s underground tunnels and split up. Jeff, who has a fear of the dark, becomes lost. On the soundtrack, one of Mary’s psychiatrist sessions plays, which reveals a sinister split personality who may or may not be haunting the building. And then, much to Phil’s horror, the generator powering the asylum’s electricity stalls, causing the tunnel lights to go out. Paul tries to outrun the darkness, but he fails — and who knows what lies waiting for him there?
That’s scary, man! I’m not afraid of the dark, but if I’m stuck underground in an abandoned insane asylum with the sound of a tape of a former insane patient confessing to murder, I’m going to need a clean set of shorts if I make it out alive. The scene works because it taps into several primal fears all at once — a fear of the unknown and the fear of losing your mind.
The Ending Still Haunts Me
Again, no spoilers about the film’s ending, except to say that it fulfills the promise of the title — we finally hear the ninth session of Mary’s treatment. It’s the final piece of the puzzle, and it explains everything that happened, both in the distant past with Mary and in the present with Gordon and his crew.
What makes Session 9 a great horror movie is that it’s ultimately not a ghost story or a haunted house film. Its terrors are all too real, and what you’ve just witnessed could conceivably happen in real life. Is there anything scarier than that?
You can rent or purchase Session 9 on Amazon Prime Video and other major digital vendors.
