At least half of this is a well-photographed tour of a terrifically creepy location, an abandoned mental hospital, with all the main rooms identified. But they never function in the story, which could as well be set in a school or a department store or a brothel. The script is amorphous, the Steven Bochco-style dramatic scenes and the innumerable explorations of dark corridors never coalesce, the characters' actions are often arbitrary and unconvincing, and the payoff is insufficient, as well as needlessly gory. The final revelation is hammered home a hundred and one times. The movie hints throughout at being a ghost story, but its credentials for that are dubious at best; it is really just a standard, non-supernatural junk horror melodrama. With this cast and this location, it could have been a great horror movie, but it needed some idea behind it. And who would ever hire these guys?
Review of Session 9
