SESSION 9 USA 2001 (Directed by Brad Anderson)
Session 9 is getting a twentieth anniversary screening during this years Brooklyn Horror Film Festival at the beautiful Nitehawk Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This Tuesday, October 19th 9:30pm. You can get tickets clicking on here.
Several years ago I was living in Worcester, Massachusetts
and took a drive up to Danvers. It is was a crisp, clear October day when I
arrived at the former Danvers State Hospital.
Not much remains of the former State Lunatic Asylum at Danvers is kind
of misleading, the original center building is beautiful and remarkably tall.
It is also very imposing. The red bricks stood out especially as they
contrasted the blue skies of that autumn morning when I visited the grounds. The
original building is actually only a tiny remnant how large the sprawling
hospital was. The Danvers State Hospital has served as inspiration for H.P.
Lovecraft's Arkham Sanatorium as well as Arkham Asylum in the Batman
universe. While the building has been influential in fiction, the true-life horrors that happened here are indeed very
disturbing.
Today the site is now comprised of renovated apartments. The past of the state hospital is only a short walk away down an unmarked trail and through overgrown bushes that leads to a large granite stone. The stone reads, “The Danvers State Hospital Cemetery “The Echos They Left Behind”” The cemetery contains hundreds of graves of Danvers patients. Only numbers marks the graves. Through the efforts of Pat Deegan and many others, hundreds of the dead have been identified. Many remain anonymous. A lot of times when reading about a film it is remarked that the location is another character in the movie. This sentiment is extremely true about the former Danvers State Hospital in Brad Anderson’s Session 9.
The film opens on two men waiting in van bearing a company name and slogan, Hazmat Elimination Co “Asbestos Abatement Professionals” outside a gate to the hospital. The two men are Gordon (Peter Mullan) & Phil (David Caruso) they await Bill Griggs (Paul Guilfoyle) who is holding bids for the asbestos removal job at the former insane asylum. They meet up and proceed on a tour of the grounds.
“It’s a pretty simple layout really, if you consider a giant flying bat.” Bill says as they walk down a hallway. Danvers as I mentioned has been a visual inspiration for Arkham Asylum in the Batman universe. Christian Bale who played Batman in the Christopher Nolan films also acted in Brad Anderson’s The Machinist.
“Whoa, what the fuck is this?” Phil asks as he looks into a metal tub filled with water “What are you a little scared Phil? This is hydrotherapy. Used to be cutting edge. They’d stuff the nut jobs into cold water I guess as a way to chill them out. Or they’d give them a lobotomy. The prefrontal lobotomy was perfected here at Danvers.” Bill Griggs (Paul Guilfoyle) As they leave the room we see the full extent of what they were seeing. A sheet with restraints covers one of the tubs. Hydrotherapy would consist of placing a person into extremely hot or cold water, as it was believed this torture would alert the parts of the brain the psychiatrists wanted to affect.
As Bill continues the walk through “Oh there’s a lovely cemetery behind the machine shop. No headstones, just numbers.“ As they get further into the building it gets darker and darker. “This is where they keep the extreme patients…psychotic. You know what they call ward A? The snake pit.” Gordon pauses and looks down the hallway and sees the chair from the opening shot of the film. “Hello, Gordon” some strange voice says as Gordon stays transfixed on the chair. Phil snaps him out of this reverie.
The camera movement and the use of light and shadow really infuse Session 9 with the sort of creepiness that really disturbs someone watching the movie. I believe of all the types of emotions and scares a horror film can achieve, to create a truly affecting foreboding that literally gets under ones skin is very difficult tone to achieve and sustain. Brad Anderson and his team elicit this feeling to an amazing extent in the film.
“Reclaiming the dark past to build a brighter future.” Bill says as the walk through winds down. As far as the job goes, it is difficult and a huge space. Gordon looks up the ceiling and points out that it contains crocidolite asbestos. Otherwise known as blue asbestos. It is considered the most hazardous type of asbestos. The job was severely undercut by the owner of Hazmat Elimination Company. Time is also limited; Bill wants the job done before Columbus Day, in order to get construction crews in. Phil says it’ll take three weeks to get done. Gordon says two weeks, much to Phil’s chagrin.
Just before stepping back outside, Phil stops and asks Bill, “Hey, what’s this?” Phil enters a room, which is covered in dozens, and dozens of illustrations cut out from magazines and books. “Seclusion, that’s what they called the patients rooms back then. A part of some therapy that was big in the seventies. Art therapy.” Gordon is once again transfixed. Outside Gordon tells Bill they’ll get the job done in one week.
Gordon sits outside his house and watches his wife with their new baby. A palpable sense of dread is felt.
The crew begins to work. Another member of the crew is introduced, Hank (Josh Lucas) Turns out Hank is dating Phil’s ex-girlfriend Amy. The other guys on the crew are, Mike (Stephen Gevedon) and Gordon’s cousin Jeff (Brendan Sexton III). The crew has lunch and Mike relates the horrific tale of Patricia Willard. Is it real or urban legend? They get back to work.
The screams of the patients are in the flakes of paint falling off of the walls.
Everyone leaves, except for Mike. He has found an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. He sits in a dilapidated office and hits play. Voices from the past come alive. “I know this is difficult Mary and that’s why we are here to help.” Mary’s distraught and anguished voice fills the room. These are the recorded sessions of which Session 9 takes it’s title from. To say more would be to say far too much.
The crew is falling apart. Is it the extreme workload in a short amount of time, the personal relationships, the home life stress, the asbestos or is it the sinister past of the very building and horrors that unfolded within affecting the crew? It could very well be, all of it.
The film works for a lot of reasons, in large part because this five-man crew really feels as though they are indeed a crew of asbestos removal guys in Massachusetts. I find this story of an asbestos team working on the building even more remarkable, now that the actual building has become high-end apartments. The doctor (Lonnie Farmer) and Mary aka Princess, Billy and Simon (Jurian Hughes) really have to be mentioned. The audience only hears their voices through the recorded sessions; together they are really the foundation of the mystery and unsettling tone of the film.
I believe that the very place of Danvers State Hospital seeps into the film. The score by Golden Climax Twins (The Mangler, The Chained) is haunting. Ultimately, the horror of the film is not built off of cheap scares but a slow I hesitate to use the word slow. Meticulous is a far better world. Session 9 is a meticulous buildup towards the haunting tale of Mary as well as the five guys working in her lingering presence. Session 9 is twenty years old. Revisiting the film today I can say, it still holds up as an unsettling, scary movie.
