Session 9

Rating:
Summary: DOES ANYBODY EVER WORK AROUND HERE?!
Review: No wonder everybody got the surprise.

Actually, it's a fresh but OVERLY plotted story. To my surprise and to not go into details (and ruin your viewing experience...), I will only say that I WAS NOT disappointed. BUT rent it first before you buy.

True, the photography is excellent. The acting is great -- even David Caruso is 'restrained' on this one. And Peter Mullan, of course, is always wonderful. However, the soundtrack is much too over-powering like music in a horror spoof.

A well-deserved three and a half stars.

Rating:
Summary: Michael and Jason would cry like babies
Review: I am glad to see this movie gaining in popularity since the release of Anderson's new movie "The Machinist." I haven't been this spooked by a movie since the babysitter let me watch The Exorcist when I was 8 yrs old. Unlike the scary but implausible villians of typical horror movies, the villian in Session 9 is alive and living in Massachussetts. Jason, Michael, the Blair Witch, the Devil himself - they would all run screaming from the dark corridors and beautiful, sickening abandoned rooms that are the real monsters in this movie. I was mesmorized by the visuals, and the plot is perfectly simple: not until the last line of dialog is uttered does the real horror set in. Be prepared to stay up for awhile afterwards.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting Madness!!
Review: This film is one of the greatest suspense films of all times and yet has received so little attention. The director combines the suggestion of madness along with the weakness of the wounded human psyche to create a thrilling yet subtle terror movie.

Brad Anderson directs this film along the same route as Hitchcock, adding dim lighting, the illusion of fear and suggestions of madness around each and every bend. Filmed at Danvers State Mental Hospital the building itself is as creepy as can be with haunting hallways and torture gadgets, used on the unlucky and insane, lurking in every corner. Anderson allows this story to unfold without being overly graphic or campy. A five man crew is hired by the state to clean up the old hospital and rid it of the asbestos that is contaminating its walls but much to their surprise other contaminations exist. David Caruso is the crew negotiator suffering from anger related issues towards the crew man who stole his wife. His partner, Peter Mullan, is the first to become unknowingly sensitive to the evil that lurks in the walls. Another crew member discovers tapes in the basement that reveal the trauma of a patient suffering from multiple personality disorder and opens up more than he imagines. So in one week the crew is faced with various events that lead to a frightening conclusion.

Anderson opens up the definition of madness leading one to believe that we all carry a bit of it inside of us waiting to be ignited. In today's world where medication is the treatment rather than lobotomies it is a scary thought. Anderson manages to trigger our senses with eerie tapes and looming walls, suspending his viewers within the gloom of an empty madhouse. The voice of "Simon" grabs the weak and wounded how will he affect you?