As you may be able to gather from my chosen letterboxd username, I really like horror films. Contrary to popular belief, it's not because I find them scary, that's a reserved trait delved out to very few films.

It's easy not to be afraid of vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves or musclebound invincible men in hockey masks because they're not real. I'm not saying those sort of films can never be scary because it really depends on the atmosphere of the film and the person watching it, every film is different and what affects a person's psyche is varied. But when it comes to something as human as a psychotic break, a killer among friends, an isolated location that was once…

You stick with this job too long, it'll mess you up man. It gets inside of you - the stress.

This is probably one of the strangest horror films I've ever seen.

It's cheap looking but superbly acted and directed.

It's got a cheesy setup but turns into something you don't expect.

It's got Horatio Cane in a haunted asylum.

Does it sound good already? Well, a lot of people would be inclined to disagree. But ignore those Netflix star ratings, because I think Session 9 is a great little horror flick that I think is horribly underrated and unjustly criticized. Some of those complaints are valid but some I believe we're born out of viewers simply not getting what…

You can't blame them for trying. Given access to a genuine abandoned hospital, housed inside an imposing gothic building, and where there's not even any need for much production design because it's been left in such a perfect condition for a horror movie, of course a team of low-budget filmmakers would leap at the chance of setting their next feature there. But after the initial spectacle of seeing what is ostensibly the ideal location, Session 9 starts to fall flat. There's just too much in it that I find uninteresting: an all-male cast, psychiatric histories that are supposed to be inherently spooky, and endless walks around corridors in the dark. Plus there's a mismatch between the cheap slasher script and…

'Session 9' is a meticulously crafted and directed horror/psychological thriller film. In a conventional sense, the film isn't really scary. It doesn't have jump scares, there are no ghosts/demons jumping around, there is no mad killer cutting up people and indulging in gore. But what 'Session 9' does have is a constant, inescapable, palpable and bone chilling sense of dread that gets amplified by an absolutely exquisite score as well as great sound mixing.
From a thematic standpoint, the film uses generic horror techniques to explore the negative effects of the patriarchal society, not on women, but on men. The film gives us a sensationalised version of the devastating violence that can be the result of the emotional repression of…

You can't blame them for trying. Given access to a genuine abandoned hospital, housed inside an imposing gothic building, and where there's not even any need for much production design because it's been left in such a perfect condition for a horror movie, of course a team of low-budget filmmakers would leap at the chance of setting their next feature there. But after the initial spectacle of seeing what is ostensibly the ideal location, Session 9 starts to fall flat. There's just too much in it that I find uninteresting: an all-male cast, psychiatric histories that are supposed to be inherently spooky, and endless walks around corridors in the dark. Plus there's a mismatch between the cheap slasher script and…