Session 9
Directed by Brad Anderson
- horror
- mystery
- drama
The story
Tensions rise within an asbestos cleaning crew as they work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back.
What it’s like
Decayed asylum corridors shot in washed-out, sickly greens and grey daylight, with the camera drifting slowly through peeling rooms and dark basement tunnels lit only by a flashlight beam. The sound design does most of the work: a constant, low industrial hum, dripping water, and the faint crackle of a reel-to-reel tape recorder that drags the mood somewhere uneasy and intimate. Pacing is deliberate and creeping, building through long quiet stretches of men working in heavy protective gear, with dread accumulating rather than arriving in jolts. The vibe is claustrophobic, bleak and paranoid, closer to slow unease than to outright scares, and it suits a late night alone with the lights off or a rainy evening when you want something eerie and unsettling. Intensity is low on gore and violence, though the psychological strain, grim mental-health subject matter and an occasional flash of shock are real and can weigh heavily. It is for people who like atmospheric, character-driven horror, where the building itself feels like the antagonist and the mystery unfolds slowly.
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