Session 9 is a psychological horror movie starring Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Brendan Sexton III, Stephen Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Paul Guilfoyle, and Larry Fessenden.
A group of hazmat cleaners, led by Gordon (Mullan) and his right-hand man Phil (Caruso) are hired to remove asbestos from the Danvers State Hospital (a real place, check it out). Gordon has a new babby at home and is desperate for money, so promises the guy coordinating the project (Guilfoyle, but I don't know his character's actual occupation) that he and his crew can do it in a week. This is obviously nonsense and Phil tells him so, but he brings in Hank (Lucus), the gambling-addict/fly-by-night guy who's also sleeping with Phil's ex; his nephew Jeff (Sexton III); and former law student and smart guy Mike (Gevedon), and they hop to it.
It becomes very clear very early on that this is going to go badly, it's just a question of how. The relationships and conflicts of the crew are pretty well-established: Phil hates Hank for obvious reasons. No one really trusts Jeff, who's not only kind of a doofus but also afraid of the dark. Mike finds an old tape player and becomes obsessed with listening to therapy sessions of one Mary Hobbes, a girl who had multiple personalities in the old Sybil style. Mike also explains the Satanic Ritual Abuse hoax to the others and mentions that "repressed memory" therapy was a big deal here, as was lobotomizing patients. Gordon, meanwhile, is slipping - he's clearly living in his van and not talking to his wife, he's suffering from sleep deprivation, and quietly losing his shit.
This all comes to a head when Hank goes to the place at night to grab a stash of coins and other metal objects he finds in a chink in the wall (actually the place's incinerator, though I don't think he ever figures that out) and is attacked by an unseen assailant. From the crew's perspective, he just disappears, but then Jeff sees him standing at a window a couple of days later, and everything just completely unravels.
So, spoiler warning: It turns out that Gordon snapped and killed his wife, his baby daughter, and even their dog, and his brain came up with a scenario to explain why he can't go home (he confesses to Phil that he struck his wife in a moment of anger). He kills the other members of the crew one by one; he actually lobotomized Hank (with some pretty impressive precision, given that he's both not a doctor and running on fumes). We end with him talking on a smashed cell phone, begging his wife to let him come home.
I really enjoy this movie, for a few reasons. The script is nice and tight, and the filming makes it seem like maybe this place is haunted by the spirit of Mary Hobbes (or her evil alter, Simon) or maybe something is possessing or haunting Gordon, but we don't really know until the last scenes. You couldn't ask for a better location for a haunted house story - the Danvers is huge, but since we're only dealing with a few areas we do develop some of my beloved sense and familiarity of place that's so critical for this kind of movie. The script takes its time and lets us see the crew interacting, which allows us to get to know all of them to a greater or less degree and get a sense of their relationships. Everyone kinda thinks Hank is a dick, but they need the extra hands. Everyone kinda thinks Jeff is a dumb kid, but he's Gordon's nephew and they need the extra hands. And so forth.
David Caruso is really the standout as far as actors go, which makes sense, but Mullan also does a great job at showing Gordon unraveling while keeping everything mostly under wraps. His descent into madness isn't a loud, gibbering mess, he's just obviously exhausted, and honestly any new parent can relate to that kind of sleep deprivation where the physical and mental fatigue mixes with the guilt over not loving every second of this and really grinds you down. Session 9 also doesn't have much in the way of budget, and so it compensates by letting us hear rather than see some of the worst things (Gordon's murder of his family, f'rex).
The director did a couple of rom-coms before this, but he apparently found his happy place because he's basically been doing horror ever since. Which is good, because he seems to have a good sense of it. He directed The Machinist, which I haven't seen, but I've heard goods things about, so maybe I'll have to check it out.
My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium-low
Next up: Singin' in the Rain
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