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Session 9

Session 9

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring
Review: i cannot believe this movie got more than 1 star, i would have given it none, but i couldnt. i read the back of the DVD and thought it sounded great, took it home, watched it, then decided i really wasted my money, not to mention the 2 hours or so that id never get back. i am a massive fan of horror/suspense, but this had neither. it looks like a made for tv movie like on the USA channel, except it couldnt be, too many curse words..........skip it

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: lobotomy central
Review: If you've ever been intrigued or fascinated by lobotomies (think, Joyce Carol Oates "Zombie," Jessica Lange "Frances" or going way back, Jack Nicholson in "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" I guarantee you that you will enjoy (if that is the right word) this movie.
There is a lot more than lobotomies to this movie, but that aspect of it is what freaked me out the most.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: better than "the shining"
Review: "session 9" surpasses stanley kubrick's "the shining" in terms of both atmosphere and pacing, and i don't make the comparison lightly. i was astounded that a USA film which I expected to be nothing more than fun, typical modern horror garbage to laugh at with friends turned out to be one of the best horror movies i've seen in the last two decades. although it starts slowly and the opening scenes, which should have established the overwhelming power and mood to come are merely jumpy and mediocre, it quickly takes off and the increasing edginess of the characters as they come under the derelict asylum's depraved influence is acted perfectly by the genuinely sterling performances given be the five characters. the bizarre collages on the wall by former patients and the dialogue by one of the more intelligent workers about the reasons why the asylum was closed flawlessly establish the atmosphere, and the character gordon is brilliantly deranged into submission to the building right from the outset. the best touch in this movie is the really disturbing soundtrack of 'repressed memory' therapy recordings that are played while the characters slowly lose their minds and turn against one another. the ending sequences are so deeply disturbing as to be indescribable. while the film obvious has logical flaws, this is more intended as a study of madness, desctruction and hopelessness perpetrated by unseen forces of evil, and to say the least, it works. a delightfully demented piece of incredible inspiration and imagination.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'd have to say it's fairly effective
Review: If you feel like watching a movie that moves very slowly, gives you a handful of characters with divergent backgrounds, tosses a few very ambiguous and supernatural cookies your way and is extremely disturbing once you put it all together, well, then this movie is definitely for you! It's the kind of film that you actually have to see twice to fully appreciate and one that will likely creep the heck out of you if watched alone in the dark.
And one thing this film doesn't have, unlike its Hollywood-ian counterparts like THE HAUNTING, is special effects. In fact, that's one of the greater things about this movie: it feels real because it looks like it's actually taped on video with very credible actors in very credible circumstances Another great thing about it is that it's actually very gory and somewhat violent in theme, and yet we rarely see anything of the sort on the big screen

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ....YOU MUST SEE THIS!!!!!!!!
Review: Man, i ...I saw it in the theatre and i had to hide my eyes more than once. This is really scary. I haven't been this creeped out since the Shining. I won't go into detail explaining it..i'm sure you've all heard..but for real...a definite must see for all.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Interesting psychological horror movie
Review: While it has some weaknesses, "Session 9" manages to deliver some devilishly creepy chills and thrills. The sprawling old Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts, with its grim Victorian facade and general state of disrepair, makes a great setting

One of my favorite character actors, the Scottish Peter Mullan, plays the owner of a small HAZMAT cleanup company. He lands a desperately needed contract to clean up the old hospital and offers his crew a bonus of $10,000 each if they can get the job done in a week's time. The job starts out okay, but soon we see that mental stability is in short supply among these guys. The place may or may not be haunted, but that's almost beside the point. The horror stories they have heard about it, plus its ominous feel, are enough to cause the men to slowly unravel. Soon, horror, either real or imagined, waits around every dark corner.

The movie does a nice job of building tension, although some people will find the pacing too slow for them. For quite awhile, nothing specific happens, but the mood tells us that something dreadful is going to happen. And it does.

The screenplay's main weakness is in its character development. The actors' characters are sketchily written, which makes it hard to get that involved with them. The ending may surprise some. I saw it coming, but this did not ruin it for me, since it seemed like the only logical conclusion.

One element that makes "Session 9" a bit different is that it isn't a Doomed Teenager movie. With one exception, it's a Doomed Adult movie. In any case, I think this is one of the better psychological horror thrillers of recent years.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Flash Back"
Review: I worked at Danvers State Hospital. Although this gothic old building was once beautiful, the dark corners, subterranean tunnels, and lost souls were legendary.

This film effectively "unearthed" all my disturbing memories and creepy feelings. Well done!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Eerie and atmospherically charged psycho-drama.
Review: The modern film industry often substitutes the grotesque and shocking horror for that which gets under the skin. The former has more punch at the box office I guess. To see another kind of horror, one must dig for gold at the local video store.
Session 9 is a creepy little nugget directed by Brad Anderson, whom I have never heard of before. The cast itself has only one person i've seen elsewhere, David Caruso. The rest are more unknowns. These factors could work against this film's reputation, which is unfortunate. This is definitely worth adding to one's collection.
This is a basic story about a group of guys working in a big, empty, scary building with the unsettling fact that it was once an institution for the insane. Many tensions build as the job progresses. Our guys are removing hazerdous materials from the building, and they don't have as much time as they normally do. The owner, Gordon, is having financial troubles that weigh heavily on his mind. Gordon's nephew is new and untried, which doesn't help. Two others, Phil and Hank had a woman come between them, and the last, Mike, is working hazmat despite pressure to follow his father into law.
These tensions incubate in the crumbling asylum, where the past seems to live on in its various pictures, implements, and dark places. Mike becomes interested in an old evidence recording he finds in a storage room, which describes the case of a frightened girl with multiple personality disorder. As he becomes more interested in the case, Hank finds something of interest in the basement and shortly disappears. Gordon confides a personal problem to his foreman Phil, who may have a problem of his own.
And Gordon's young nephew is terribly afraid of the dark.
As tensions crawl closer to the surface, it becomes clear that there is going to be a reckoning, and at this point it is impossible to stop watching the events unfold. I had a hard time figuring out just how things were going to turn out, which is always a fun challenge. When the end finally came, I was still left pondering the question 'Why?', until I thought more about the case of the girl with M. P. D. While the reasons for the final events are not exactly laid bare, it is a compelling, disturbing and thought provoking story.
Surely each viewer will understand this story in their own way, such is the beauty of the psycho-drama. Director Brad Anderson has a good cast, a great building to play in, and a very good script which he wrote with Stephen Gevedon (who plays Mike in the film).
Although I have never heard of this director or most of the cast before, I will certainly be very interested in their future projects.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's gonna scare you!
Review: After borrowing this DVD from a friend, I was compelled to review it for all you [amazon.com] customers. This is one creepy, un-nerving, hypnotic film.

The reason this movie does it for me for pure horror lies in the fact that there is nothing scarier than psychological horror.You can take all the Freddy Krueger's, Jason's, and Michael Meyer's and you know it's all BS. Take some normal person with mental instability, and you've got something that will keep you up all night.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: bland but not bad
Review: I was reading about this film in the magazine from last year's "Fantasia" film festival in Montreal and it sounded intriguing. Much to my dismay this film turned out to be an unoriginal entry into the suspense/horror/thriller genre. The story is well written and the camera work/set design are pretty cool. I just found there were some loose ends, some areas of the film that should have been dealt with in more detail. This film could have been incredible but it ended up being so so.


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