A group of 5 broke H.A.S.M.A.T. workers get the low-ball bid to take the asbestos out of a huge, creepy, isolated CLOSED mental hospital in half the needed time, in this atmospheric and moody horror film which makes great promises, then doesn't deliver. You'll watch with interest as the characters get freakier and freakier, doing odd things seemingly for no reason, finding odd objects that shouldn't be there, and stressing, stressing, stressing. This is where the intrigue starts and ultimately where the problems lie. Gordon, owner of the asbestos removal company, kills his wife and baby. A disenfranchised attorney, moonlighting with the crew to pay the bills, decides to become an amateur psychiatrist and sleuth, ripping open boxes, pulling a tape recorder and files out of nowhere, and listening to tapes from a small buried box marked "evidence". Why does he do that? If he were SO interested in the law, he'd still be practicing it, no? Another guy is mysteriously lead to a cache of treasure, hanging out of a crumbling brick wall, but why? You'll be on the edge of your seat, anticipating the answers to these and many other intrigues. While you're watching this it's all very interesting, well-paced and exciting, directed by the talented Brad Anderson, with a crisp Kubrick-like style. You wait for the big conclusion to pull all of this stuff together, but it sadly, does not arrive; what happens, happens. You never find out why, or what the real motivations of the characters were. The only explanation seems to be that insanity is some sort of resonating force which hangs out and soaks into the sane. The fact that the character doing all of the killing was already nuts before he began working in this horror house, seemingly meant nothing to the screenwriter. Frankly, it's not enough. It is lame. Direction is strong. The film looks great, using a new video system that shoots at 24FPS and allows the filmmaker to work without extensive lighting tricks. The result is that the abandoned hospital (apparently, a real one, although I know not where it is), is incredibly spooked-out. The cast, including CSI's David Caruso, is edgy, sharp and brimming over with method-acting tension. They clash and interact nicely. The whole film is very well paced and directed. The script needed to be more than a 'great idea', however. It needed a slam-bang conclusion to suit to what leads up to it.
Review of Session 9
