Session 9 Review

Session 9is not the film it purports to be. I found out about it in a list of genuinely frighting horror films on IMDB. The blurb made it sounds like a modern William Castle type horror affair, a big joyous scary ride. David Caruso was a lure too, his sideways glances in CSI:Miami with a scared look on his face sounded like a good time.

It was clear from the first shot of poor HD camera footage that I was not going to find the pleasures of House on Haunted Hill (either of them) here. It soon became clear this was less a horror film and rather an exploration of the stresses and strains of asbestos removal men, which in itself is not intrinsically a problem. The quality of the footage was further undermined by the complete lack of cinematographic creativity. I don't expect every horror to be a ludicrous effects fest or requiring a huge budget, but with less budget I do still expect the same level of creativity if not a little more.

Cinematography aside, the biggest problem seems to have stemmed from Brad Anderson who wrote, directed and edited the film. Whether the number of roles that he inhabited was by choice or by budgetary necessity it was still a colossal error. It is difficult to spot at which point the mistakes that lead to the low quality of this film began but I can feel very positive that the editing was the nail in its coffin. Admittedly it did suffer from a very short story stretched out over a feature films length, at an hour it might have worked a little better, but even that does not excuse the paint by number banality of the cutting decisions. Whenever people spoke it would cut to them, with a breathing space in between all lines, whenever something long was being listened to we had to hear it, unabridged, along with mystifyingly abstract cutaways: not abstract in a fun way. This was made even more tragic when watching the deleted scenes and alternative ending as they would have improved the film.

However, Session 9was not without merit, which I found a little more understandable and also a little shocking when I discovered the directors next film was The Machinist. The quality of acting was inconsistent but there were some really good performances, primarily from the Scottish actor Peter Mullan who seemed to be channelling his experience with Ken Loach. This created a surprisingly believable character who was tragic and painfully sad. His interactions with David Caruso were particularly poignant with the exception of a rather ill conceived outburst from Curaso of “Fuck You” accompanied by a dramatic zoom into his face. It is a moment so rife with stupid it is no wonder it has become a strong meme at least for those who have seen the film.

The overall story is not completely without merit. It bravely tries to portray vaguely realistic characters dealing with their daily lives as asbestos removal men. Unfortunately despite making an unrealistic time quote of a week to clear an enormous asylum none of the men seemed to be in much of a hurry to actually get the job done. They all seemed much more interested in lunch breaks and meanderings about the building or listening to old patient doctor sessions on tape.

The asbestos was definitely one of the more terrifying elements of the film, made even more frightening by the constant disregard for the safety equipment whenever they fancied a chat. I get that it would not be practical to have the majority of dialogue muffled by face masks but considering they mentioned the dangers it might have made more sense if they were a little more concerned. That said, somebody in the production of this film definitely knew their stuff about asbestos removal. There seemed to be a great amount of accuracy (at least from my asbestos removing ignorance) as to the tools and equipment they were shown to be using, to the extent that there were definitely points earlier in the film where it felt more of a demonstration of the process than a horror.

That is the films main problem, it is barely a horror film at all. It just about touches ever so slightly into the supernatural and certainly if all the deleted gumpf remained, there would have been a scary lady which might have been enough to justify its claims. If things were different it could have been a good bloody psychological drama. I think instead it is a deeply miss-marketed low quality film.

At no point during this film did I want to turn it off and give up but I could never recommend it to anybody unless I was desperate to show them Peter Mullan's sad face or an example of atrociously dull editing or if I knew somebody with a keen interest in asbestos removal.