DailyView: Day 164, Movie 245
Continuing the run of horror/thriller movies in the DailyView, October edition, I found a film called Session 9, a film that depends on mood and imagery to build the feelings of the audience. At that level, the film does a decent job. However, the film does not reach on too many other levels.
An asbestos abatement crew wins a contract to work on an old, abandoned mental institution that had a frightening past. When things from the past seem to start coming back and affecting the crew, troubles mount and dangers arrive.
This movie just never grabbed me the way it hoped. I was bored by the early part of the movie and the third act felt very forced and threw a twist into the story that did not make much sense.
The cast was decent, led by David Caruso. It also included Josh Lucas, Stephen Gevedon, Peter Mullan, Brendan Sexton III, and Paul Guilfoyle.
Part of the plot included one of the crew playing a tape from a session in the past of a person with multiple personalities, with the dominant, possible alter, “Simon.” While that sounds creepy, one of the problems is that some of the voices on the tape sounded so cartoonish that it negatively affected the mood they were trying to go for in the scene.
I had a lot of problems with the film, from its lack of characterization in many of the characters to the out of nowhere ending. While it does create a certain mood, Session 9 just cannot sustain that across the entire film.
