Black October 9: Session 9

I wasn’t planning to make Session 9 the ninth instalment of my exploration of my horror movie DVD collection. It just worked out that way.

This movie absolutely nailed me, strapped me down and hurt me badly. I wasn’t expecting it. All I knew was what the label on the back of the DVD box told me, but that was enough for me to rent it (and, later, buy it). It didn’t say much. A crew is brought in to clear the asbestos out of an abandoned mental hospital that might not be as empty as they think. That’s all I knew.

I am an easily distracted person. As I type this, I am listening to a live podcast and keeping track of the world on two different computer screens. And I’m focused on all those things. It’s an odd facet of my mental makeup, something that helped me in my career as a reporter and editor, but also something that drives me crazy when I’m stuck somewhere dull without a book or laptop.

Session 9 made me stop and watch. From the opening scene to the closing credits, I didn’t look away. I couldn’t. The mood is set from the beginning, a combination of gritty camera work, haunting, understated music and the kind of excellent editing I rarely notice. I could not take my eyes away from the screen as the powerful, frightening, tragic tale unfolded.

The main character, Gordon, is played by Peter Mullan, an actor I don’t know well. He’s a troubled family man with a new baby. Gordon leads the team, which also includes David Caruso, Josh Lucas and Brendon Sexton III as Gordon’s nephew, who is learning the ropes. The hospital they’re sent to is a real place, the ruins of an old psychiatric centre in Massachusetts, a sprawling, gothic pile with tunnels, outbuildings, lost rooms and decaying cellars.

Stephen Gevedon (who also co-wrote it) plays worker Mike, who wants to quit to go to law school. Day after day, he sneaks away from his work and hides in the basement, listening to the old reel-to-reel patient interviews he finds. And as he does, he awakens something in the hospital. Is it supernatural? Is it a forgotten patient, hidden away? Mysteries and secrets build as the story whips forward.

Sometimes you can see a cast loving their work. You can see that they believe in their project. Session 9 is one of those films. You can see the actors buying into writer/director Brad Anderson’s concept of a different kind of horror movie, a different kind of thriller. This is most evident in Sexton (who was memorable in Welcome To The Dollhouse) and Caruso, an actor I usually cannot stomach. Caruso proves in Session 9 that he is, at least, a two-note actor, and one of those notes is pretty good (not the one on TV). Anderson takes chances with camera work, with story, with horror cliches, and it works every single time. This is a rare example of a perfect film, and an even rarer example of a perfect horror film.

It’s tragic that so few people have seen this. That should change. It has to.

Easter Island Sex Toy

Recently unearthed during an archaeological dig on a remote corner of Easter Island, this rare object has been identified by esteemed historian Hugh G. Rection as a 1,000-year-old Easter Island Sex Toy. Rection, a professor of dildology at Hardvard University, says the unusual totem was carved from a single piece of white marble.

I asked him why it looks so much like that big half-empty jug of water I brought in from my garage and put on my dining room table, and he said he didn’t know, and I told him he might be full of crap.

Table by IKEA.

Today’s Moron: Dave Wilson, the Porno Party Principal

Meet Dave. Dave used to be the man in charge at Louisville Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Dave is out of a job after his bosses learned he was a bit of a problem. How bad? Let’s see: there was the distinct smell of booze on his breath from time to time, and that raised some eyebrows. But hey, every school has a drunk teacher, right? I had a geography teacher for a couple of years in high school who missed every Monday first period, and would show up around lunch looking green and smelling like gin.

Dave’s big mistake wasn’t the drinking, though. It was the private porno party starring students. Some of his staffers reported that he got his sweaty hands on a copy of a school surveillance tape that had caught two students having sex in the cafeteria. He invited some teachers to his office, lowered the blinds, dimmed the lights, and projected the image on a big screen, making lewd comments throughout. Weather Station sources could neither confirm nor deny the presence of Miller High Life and Nacho Cheese Doritos.

The other teachers were outraged at the video, and at their boss’s behaviour, and stormed out, and one filed a complaint.

Wait, hold on. What’s a Male High School? Boys only? What kind of movie was this? I’ll Google it. Hmmm, it seems Dave is still listed as principal. That’s likely to change. It doesn’t say anything here about whether this is a co-ed school or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the school. It’s about the moron. Dave is a pig, and this is either child pornography or dangerously close to it. I’m stunned that no criminal charges were laid.

The part that irks me is the outcome. Dave was allowed to retire. He’ll get a pension, and benefits, and probably have his portrait hung in the hallway or something. I can’t stomach that kind of back-patting sendoff for pigs like this.

The school, though, is content to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Interim principal Ted Boehm told the local paper, the Courier-Journal, that the school had received no complaints and he didn’t think Pervy Drunken Dave’s reputation would suffer. Well, sure, Ted, but that’s because you’re hushing it up.

Dave’s reputation should suffer. Everyone should know what happened. Public shame is the only way to really punish these idiots who take pleasure from exploiting children. And I suspect Ted’s remark about “no complaints” is about to change.