Session 9

Gordon Fleming, the owner of an asbestos abatement company in Massachusetts, makes a bid to remove asbestos from an abandoned psychiatric hospital. Desperate for money, he promises to complete the job in one week. His crew includes Mike, a law school dropout who is knowledgeable about the asylum's history; Phil, who is dealing with his grief over a recent breakup; Hank, a gambling addict; and Jeff, Gordon's nephew with a pathological fear of the dark.

While surveying the job site, Gordon hears a disembodied voice that greets him by name, but ignores it. As the men begin their job, Mike discovers a box containing nine audio-taped sessions with Mary Hobbes, a patient who suffered from dissociative identity disorder. Mike begins listening to the tapes in the ensuing days, which contain sessions in which Mary's psychologist attempts to unveil details surrounding a crime she committed at her home two decades prior; in the sessions, Mary exhibits numerous personalities who have unique voices and demeanors. Meanwhile, while removing asbestos from tunnels running beneath the hospital, Hank discovers a cache of antique silver dollar coins and other valuables scattered from the crematory. Late that night, Hank covertly returns to the hospital to retrieve the items, and discovers a lobotomy pick among them. Hank becomes frightened by a series of noises, and witnesses a shadowy figure in the tunnel. As he flees, he is confronted by an unknown assailant.

When Hank fails to show up to work the next day, the others learn he broke up with his girlfriend, and speculate he may have won money gambling and left town. An additional worker, Craig McManus, is hired to take Hank's place. During working hours, Gordon repeatedly attempts to contact his wife, Wendy, but she screens his calls. He confides in Phil that he slapped her after she inadvertently splashed him with a pot of boiling water, and that she refuses to answer his calls or let him see their infant daughter. In a stairwell in the hospital, Jeff witnesses Hank staring out a window wearing sunglasses, talking to himself. When Jeff retrieves the others, Hank has vanished.

The men split up to search for Hank, while Mike instead is compelled to continue listening to the tapes. Jeff and Phil separately descend into the tunnels to search for Hank; Phil finds him, half-nude, still wearing sunglasses, and muttering to himself. Shortly after, the generator runs out of fuel, leaving Jeff trapped in absolute darkness. Mike restores the electricity and continues listening to the ninth session tape, which reveals that one of Mary's malignant personalities, "Simon," was responsible for her stabbing her little brother and parents to death. Meanwhile, Phil finds Gordon in Mary's former hospital room, staring at photos from his daughter's baptism which he has pasted to the wall. Jeff subsequently emerges from the tunnels, resurfacing in an outbuilding, and is attacked by an unseen assailant at the company van.

The following day, Gordon arrives at the hospital and finds Hank wrapped in plastic sheeting in one of the rooms, the lobotomy pick protruding from his eye. Gordon is confronted by Phil, who repeatedly tells him to "wake up" before vanishing in front of him. Craig enters the room and witnesses Gordon standing over Hank, who is barely alive. Gordon attacks Craig, forcing him in a headlock before pulling the lobotomy pick from Hank's eye socket and stabbing it into Craig′s. Gordon, in a dissociated state, proceeds to find the bodies of each of his crew members lain out in various rooms in the hospital, and recounts his murdering each of them. He also recalls his killing Wendy, his infant daughter, and dog after Wendy spilled the boiling water on him.

Distraught, Gordon confusedly attempts to call his home to apologize to Wendy. As he stares at the bloody scene, an excerpt from the ninth session tape plays: During it, Mary's doctor asks her, "And where do you live, Simon?" to which "Simon" responds: "I live in the weak and the wounded, Doc."

In reviewing the film for the 2003 edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Edward Bryant contends that Simon is not necessarily an alternate personality of the former patient Mary, but rather a malignant genius loci.[4] He also points out that the deleted scenes included on the DVD help fill out the narrative.[4] Critics have also pointed out similarities and references to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).[5][6][7]

Scholar Heike Schwarz states that Session 9 "refers to DID [ Dissociative identity disorder ] and a possible possession with a demonic personality."[8] M. Scott Peck also saw evil originating from weakness or cowardice.[9]

Session 9 premiered at the Fantasia Festival in July 2001.[15][16] It was released to theaters on August 10, playing on 30 screens.[2] It ended its American theatrical run on October 18, grossing a total of $378,176.[2] The film was a greater financial success abroad, earning $1.2 million internationally.[2]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[29]

The score to Session 9 was composed by Seattle, Washington-based experimental band Climax Golden Twins. The score is in an ambient and dark ambient vein. The soundtrack was released on August 21, 2001, through Milan Records. "Choke Chain" by Sentridoh is played over the closing credits of the film, but is not featured on the album.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Climax Golden Twins (Scott Colburn, Robert Millis, Jeffrey Taylor), except "Piece for Tape Recorder", written and recorded by Vladimir Ussachevsky.

• Genius (mythology) – referring to spirits such as a Genius loci

• Datlow, Ellen; Windling, Terri (2003). The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection. New York City, New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-31425-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Schwarz, Heike (2014). Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-839-42488-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

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