SESSIONS 9
(director/writer: Brad Anderson; screenwriter: Stephen Gevedon; cinematographer: Uta Briesewitz; editor: Brad Anderson; music: Climax Golden Twins; cast: David Caruso (Phil), Stephen Gevedon (Mike King), Paul Guilfoyle (Bill Griggs), Josh Lucas (Hank Romero), Peter Mullan (Gordon Fleming), Brendan Sexton III (Jeff Fleming); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: R; producers: David Collins, Dorothy Aufiero, Michael Williams; USA Films; 2001)
“Flawed but well-acted, arty and creepy supernatural thriller.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brad Anderson (“Next Stop Wonderland”/”The Darien Gap”), directs, edits and co-writes with
Stephen Gevedon this flawed but well-acted, arty and creepy supernatural thriller.
A contractor from Boston offers a low bid and wins the asbestos removal job in a real abandoned and run-down 19th century insane asylum, that was shut down by the state in 1985. The Danvers, Massachusetts, State Mental Hospital has been vacant until cleaned some 15 years later than its closing date.
The emotionally messed-up crew chief, Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan, Scottish actor), and his crew, are hired to fix the asylum mansion up in a week (an impossible task) and remove its asbestos. Gordon’s crew consists of: Phil (David Caruso), a failed law student; the smart rich guy Mike King (Stephen Gevedon, co-writer); the ladies man Hank Romero (Josh Lucas); and Gordon’s, afraid of the dark, recent high school grad stoner nephew Jeff Fleming (Brendan Sexton III).
Each worker becomes obsessed with something in the madhouse, as the abusive institution seems engulfed with paranormal activity. Mike obsesses to listen to therapy session tapes of a long dead woman with multiple personalities and other creepy characters (the title was derived from these tapes). Hank finds buried in the wall a treasure and old-time coins. While Gordon stresses out about his shaky business and about his wife and infant.
The crew find rubbish strewn all over the long hall corridors and find medical equipment left behind when the hospital performed barbaric frontal lobotomies.
The men start arguing with each other for no apparent reason (like, maybe, it’s because of the bad vibes of the place). The only squabble that makes sense is that Phil is pissed that Hank is sleeping with his girl.
The scares are internal (no ghosts), and revolve around the building’s dark karma and foreboding shadows on its vast grounds (like it’s a haunted house flick). There are things about this low-budget (shot on video, but with cutting edge technology in its use of digital cameras), atmospheric horror pic that doesn’t add up, even if it’s still an eerie film that could have used a bigger story from its under-developed script and it could have been less confusing.
REVIEWED ON 7/15/2024 GRADE: B-