I'm on a quest. Some say it is a fool's errand, yet I keep plugging away. That is, I want to find a great horror movie. Not just a good one, but a great one. This is no easy task. In every other genre of filmmaking, it is very easy to point to a great example of what each film in that genre strives to be: Casablanca, Star Wars, Ben Hur, The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings, The Lion King. We've all seen them, we all love them. Even horror has its classics, but for some reason, ever since the late 70's, filmmakers seem to have given up on the horror drama and given in to the cheap, slasher genre with utter glee. A celebration of the shock, rather than the truly dreadful. Out of this morass has crawled a couple of genuinely good movies, but unfortunately, Session 9 is not one of them.
Session 9 starts with a hazmat crew bidding on a contract to clean out the asbestos from an old mental hospital that is going to be remade into condos or something like that. The crew's leader Bill is desperate. He needs the job or his business will go under, so he drastically underbids every other offer and agrees to finish the job in one week. His partner Phil, played by David Caruso, doesn't think this is a good idea, but they hire another couple men for the job. Unfortunately, one of the men stole Phil's girlfriend, so there is immediate tension in the crew that builds and builds as if there is some malevolent force in hospital with them. Is it some lingering, evil presence that never left because of the building's horrific past, or is it just all in their minds?
The movie starts off interestingly enough. I had high hopes that it would be a good, mental thriller filled with ever-increasing dread. And for at least half of the film, the movie delivers as promised. The small crew with their impossible deadline begins to turn on itself as old resentments and new frustrations churn together in a simmering anger pot. But when the movie introduces an ambiguous evil spirit, it starts to go off the rails. By the end, it pulls a cheap bait-and-switch and abruptly finishes, almost as if the writer didn't know how to resolve the plot. I see this tendency a lot in horror films, where they try to be something grander than they are and then fall flat. It almost as if the writer paints himself in a corner plotwise and can't resolve it. They build a complex puzzle they can't solve and in desperation, throw up their hands and say, "I give up! Kill everybody!" There are some intriguing side stories in Session 9, but they ultimately end up as red herrings to cover up a standard killer-on-the-loose story. But, to the director's credit, he shoots for grander heights. He should be applauded for trying to do something better, but ultimately failing. It is maybe worth a watch if it's a rental, but finally, just an average film and a tad disappointing.
No comments:
Post a Comment