SESSION 9

Gordon manages a decontamination company in financial trouble; winning a tender to remove asbestos residues from an old psychiatric hospital to be renovated could be the salvation for him and his employees. The team consisting of five workers in total immediately gets to work, but the stay within the hospital walls and the sinister legends that linger between them contribute to increasing the pressure. The long and endless corridors, the cells where the most dangerous patients were locked up, and the damp basements of the dilapidated shed still hide some terrible secrets... The film has a particular story: director Brad Anderson spotted the Danvers Mental Hospital, a late 19th-century structure, abandoned in the early 1980s, while driving around the suburbs of Boston; its decidedly gloomy appearance, capable of creating anxiety just by looking at it, immediately convinced him that it would be perfect as a backdrop for the setting of a horror film. And so here is this "Session 9", a true small great surprise of the season in the horror genre; shot in digital, with a new Sony system in development, and then transferred to film, the movie has no need to rely on gruesome scenes or various dismemberments to convey the "sense of terror"; rather, the director, using the camera to its best advantage and especially the gloomy settings of the asylum (which looks like a sort of huge Overlook Hotel from "Shining") guides the viewer into a nightmare that becomes increasingly anguishing, culminating in a chilling finale. The central part is a bit slow but that was inevitable in order to present the psyche of the various characters and provide the viewer with the clues to understand, and perhaps anticipate, the anguishing final sequences. A pleasant surprise from an emerging director; the viewing is definitely recommended.