| Title | The golden age of horror: Session 9 (2001) |
| Author | Chris Hornbostel and Grandy Peace |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | October 4, 2014 |
Chris: Many effective horror films reside on fears that are as old as western civilization. Our stories of ghosts, vampires, and other supernatural beasties are rooted at the very beginnings of our collective history and folklore..
Read the full articleFirstly, it's Peter Mullen! Mullan sounds like a Disney cartoon.
Also, I don't recall saying that Brad Anderson wanted a non-supernatural interpretation. In an early cut of the movie, there's a crazy old lady in the attic who's killing everyone. Maybe that's what you're thinking of. But my contention is that you can't deny there's something supernatural in Session 9 for this simple reason:
1) As Chris notes, Gordon hears Simon's voice in his head. You might want to interpret this as Gordon's psyche talking to him, but...
2) Mike plays the recordings and hears Simon's voice. Gordon never hears those recordings.
So we as the audience, as objective observers, are shown a link between what Gordon hears in his head and the afflicted woman on the tapes Mike is listening to. That, to me, is an explicit reference to Simon as some supernatural third party and not simply an aspect of Gordon's psyche. Session 9 is an example of the difference between ambiguity and subtlety. I don't think there's any ambiguity that Simon is a supernatural entity.
I see your point, but I guess I wish they would have sold Simon getting into Gordon's head a bit more...I don't know, explicitly, I guess.
We've got at least one more film in the offing where the location's as much a character as any of the people in it, perhaps more, but the one I'm thinking of is very much a set, carefully assembled just for the purpose of the movie. It makes an interesting contrast to the largely unaltered eerie reality of the Danvers in Session 9.
Great movie... that I also found on cable one day. I didn't think it was on many people's list.
I didn't interpret the ending as Simon being an actual being like Azazel in Fallen or something like that. I thought they meant it in a figurative sense: "there's a little Simon in all of us and he comes out in our weakest moments".
I like that we're calling this era the golden age of horror. I had never considered it that way but a lot of my favs have certainly come from this "period".
Do you feel it's not explicit? I seem to recall we hear Simon talking directly to Gordon a couple of times, greeting him and then later telling him to kill his wife and child.
Then how do you account for Simon's voice in Gordon's head when Gordon never hears the tapes? That specific and very distinctive voice exists for at least two people, independent of each other, each associated with Danvers, and many years apart.
Furthermore, the day he hears Simon's voice -- "Hello, Gordon" -- Gordon goes home with flowers, having just gotten the job, and kills his wife and child. That implies to me a case of demonic possession much more than a moment of weakness. :)
I like Grandy's interpretation, which I think fits with what Tom is saying but incorporates Beluga's take. Simon is there, waiting to prey on those who are experiencing a moment of great weakness so he can take over.
I... uh... it's a stylistic device? You know, like Simba, who's not really talking to his dad Mufasa through the stars. The voice on the tape is real, the voice we hear in Gordon's case is just movie magic for the audience. His moment of weakness is triggered by having boiling water dropped on him. It's just enough to get someone already on edge to lose his marbles.
Why does Gordon hear the same voice Mary channeled on the tape? It's not a stylistic device, it's a voice. And it establishes that Simon exists objectively outside of Gordon's subjective realm. That's the point of Mike listening to the tapes.
It's like The Shining. The ghosts of the Overlook exist because they let Jack Nicholson out of the freezer. That moment establishes that they aren't just the visions of disturbed people. They are real independent entities who can turn freezer handles. Simon is a real independent entity who can talk through a female Danvers patient many years ago as well as into the head of a man showing up to remove asbestos. Any interpretation of either movie as not having a supernatural explanation willfully ignores part of the movie.
Hmm... I dunno, they're pretty different. The Shining has supernatural elements all over the place while Session 9 barely has a few snippets of voice over. It's an interesting comparison, though : I remember reading Stephen King saying he hated the movie because it totally glossed over the father's very real alcoholism and the "pressure" of professionnal/family life helping along his going crazy as much as the haunted hotel. I never read the book, but the "pressure" in the hotel boiler was apparently one of the main symbolic bits in the novel, which was not even in the movie.
I've seen this movie probably 10 times now, and I still have no idea which interpretation is "correct" (ie. intended by the filmmakers), but I must say I prefer it much more without the objectively-existent evil spirit Simon. Other than the voice on the tape and the voice in Gordon's final break with sanity, nothing else in the movie really supports it being an evil spirit waiting to possess the weak and wounded. I think they're just using the voice as a device to parallel the two stories.
Plus, I just prefer that interpretation...it's a more interesting story without the evil spirit.
I'm with Tom, we're in evil spirit land. To me, having a weak and tattered person lose their shit and kill their family/friends/coworkers due to stress/insanity, is more run of the mill pedestrian than having a weak and tattered person possessed by a spirit that preys on the weak and tattered.
Also, it's called session 9, the session where the evil spirit is revealed/named. I don't like the "there's a simon in all of us" reading so much as the "simon is real" reveal.
Best scene in the movie: Gordon sitting in his car with flowers, having his psyche invaded by Simon, about to go kill his family. Still creeps me out.
http://www.quartertothree.com/...
You say Anderson wanted a non supernatural interpretation right there. How dare you not remember in explicit detail something you said over seven years ago!?! J'accuse! I went back and looked at the thread while we were conversing, and just lifted the comment from there. I had no idea there was an early cut with a crazy old lady in the attic killing eveyrone, though. I guess that could have worked but I think it would have been an inferior film. It's enough that for the characters, the idea that a returned patient is killing people is enough. I quite like that Simon appears to be the driving force. For me it's pretty explicit that this is so though it took a repeated viewing for me to cement that belief, back when I originally saw the movie.
Oh man, that thread even has a poll. THAT'S A DEAD TIE!
I imagine Anderson must have said something on the commentary track. But if he wanted a mundane interpretation, I'd say he screwed up. :) BTW, you can see "crazy old lady in the attic" stuff they shot in the deleted scenes on the DVD.
Awesome, I will check that out.
I agree that a non-mundation setup isn't really plausible for those of us watching the movie. I'm quite pleased with my "it just had to be plausible for the characters" argument.
I agree that it *has* to be an evil possession here. There isn't another explanation that works, given what happens in the movie, and it completely fills out and informs that scene that Scott mentions here, with the truck and flowers.
That being said--and to answer Tom's earlier question to me above--I did kinda want more emphasis on the Simon cues.
Enh. It doesn't have to be either way...it's open to interpretation, which is why people are still writing blog posts and yahoo answers questions about it 15 years later. I wouldn't want all movies to be so open to freeform analysis, but when a good one comes along it's pretty neat.
I love that Glengarry comparison.
