Session 9

(2001) *****

Yes, I gave it 5 stars. Absolutely one of my favorites. Besides Burnt Offerings, this is the only movie I've watched twice with the commentary on, to see what was inside the director's heads when they made this. Normally, I've must have seen it at least a dozen times. It's one of my movies that I sleep to. Yes, it is slow in the beginning. There is a reason for that! If you don't get the details of Gordon(Peter Mullan) and his wife's conversation, you won't get it later. I've had to watch it a few times to realize whether or not Phil(David Caruso) was real throughout the movie..! The first time I heard Simon's(mental patent's other personality) voice, I swear the hairs on my neck stood up! I enjoy movies that take place in a real location(Danvers State Hospital). As soon as I watched this movie, I looked into the hospital, but they closed that down. I've watched behind the scenes footage a couple of times, to see the actors points of view and their feelings about the hospital. Mental institutions are very interesting places to me, specially the closed down locations. The movie is eerie, not needing any blood or gore at all.
The movie is about an asbestos cleaning crew, Gordon, Phil, Mike, Hank, and Jeff, who go into Danvers State Hospital to clean it out and make it safe to be rebuilt. The crew wins the bid on this job by promising to be done in a week. Gordon, the head of the crew has just had a child with his wife and is having sleeping issues with the baby crying all night of an ear infection. This is effecting his performance and Phil, his assistant, is noticing. Mike and Jeff are working in one part of the building where the power keeps going out. Mike goes down into the basement to find the fuse box, when he comes across a room full of mental patients records and interviews. He comes across a red-taped box with the name of Mary Hobbs and decides to open it. There are tapes in there that he decides to listen to, finding out about Mary's different personalities. As the days go by, Mike finds excuses to go back and listen to the tapes, all nine sessions. Gordon starts hearing voices as he's working and having nightmares of an accident that happened with his wife. Hank sprays the pipes in the basement and comes across hidden treasure and decides to steal it and disappears. Phil hires on a new guy, Craig. The more Mike listens to the tapes and finds out what happened to Mary, the more bad things happen to the crew members....and then he finds the last personality, Simon....Going on the walk-through, Gordon sees this chair and hears a voice calling his name.Different views of Danvers...Gordon is sitting in the graveyard. No names, just numbers.."Why are pictures of my family on this wall?"....