Session 9 (2001)
[Reader disclaimer: there will be spoilers discussed. This piece also contains material of a mature/sensitive nature.]
Today, I found myself stumbling across this relatively unknown b-movie, a film from the early 2000s that stylistically is akin to other films of the genre such as The Shining (1980) and Shutter Island (2010). The basic premise, as you might imagine, is a descent into madness inside an abandoned mental asylum.
My initial thoughts, 10 minutes into the film, was that it was prepositioned to be a typical horror with a paranormal or possession plot point. Indeed, most of the unnecessarily lengthy dialogue in the first half of the film is expositional (albeit vanilla and unimaginative in its address) and lead the viewer to believe that something sinister roams the halls of the asylum. I suppose, in a way, it does: however, its depiction of such is slow-burning and stereotypical.
Our "ghost", or perhaps more likely "demon/demonic spirit" is named Simon, a voice who is discovered through tapes of a patient's conversation with their doctor. What initially presents itself as a character with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) becomes the main plot point: this identity who previously inhabited a patient and cajoled them into murdering their family.
This follows on to the narrative's present day, in which the protagonist (or, technically, antagonist) Gordon starts to hear Simon's voice at several intervals, telling him to do things. I will credit the film's ability to convey paranoia and suspicion through its characters: there were many times in the third act where I was second-guessing (most of) the character's motives, and that for me was an entertaining experience, much like my first viewing of Shutter Island.
There are clues scattered throughout the film, from Gordon's peanut butter in the corridor to the gravestone which he sits by (these, I trust you, are devices that make sense with context) and, although the method of using objects as signifiers is used often in film-making, it was still effective in its execution. Despite the filler scenes and the completely random fade transitions between them, I was still hooked and eager to see where the narrative would go next.
Praise aside, there are still glaringly obvious mistakes and problems with Session 9. For one, there are small inconsistencies (such as name tags in the cremation chamber which should've burned) and a lack of explanation for considerably big markers in the plot that take you out of the experience somewhat.
One thing that I am still unsure about is "Simon" and his form. Is he a demon? Or is he a ghost? Is he even real? I can rationalise that he must be one of these things, because it's implied that he at least possesses/lives in more than one host (e.g. the original asylum patient and Gordon) and his voice was not only heard in a non-diegetic way (inside Gordon's mind) but also diegetically as well (on the tapes between the patient and doctor).
What doesn't make a lot of sense to me is that at one point during the third act of the film, footsteps are heard above the characters. Only one character is unaccounted for, but he's later found in the basement. So who was running above them? Is this meant to be Simon? If so, all of the characters hear it, which puts into motion the final act of the film in which the twist is revealed.
Simon's presence, in that case, is not exclusive to Gordon, which suggests he is not a figment of his imagination nor the original patient's. He is something entirely 'other', and perhaps the point of this film is to keep it suggestive/unexplained, but that to me is bothersome and lazy. They had all the time in the world, apparently, to waste on expositional dialogue in the first half, which turned out to be irrelevant to the story: yes, context is needed and appreciated by a viewer, but perhaps not in the quantity that Session 9 decided to deliver.
Something should also be said, perhaps, for the use of a mental asylum as a setting for horror films. In a society more accepting and less ignorant to mental illness, I find myself unable to go along with the idea of using mentally ill characters as a signifier of evil or horror, seeing as the two are not synonymous.
This film arguably suggests that people with DID are inherently violent or at least prone to sadistic thoughts, which is obviously unfounded and a considerably harmful correlation to make. The Simon character may well be an entirely separate entity from his original host, but it seems tired to make the original host a mentally ill character as opposed to a neurotypical one. That, I would argue, proves more of a challenge to the filmmaker but one that they should take up regardless.
Overall, I did enjoy this little b-movie gem. It's not original, nor is it particularly gripping, but it's enjoyable and arguably well-made for something with such a low budget.
If you liked this film, I'd also recommend the following:
- Shock Corridor (1963)
- The Shining (1980)
- Shutter Island (2010)
- The Ward (2010)
- Grave Encounters (2011)
Overall rating: 6/10
- K
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