Jun 19 2008
SESSION 9
Session 9: Brad Anderson’s 2001 Horror film set on the grounds of the Danvers State Mental Hospital.
Since breaking into the hospital was always a dream of mine as a juvenile delinquent, I’ve been more than a little curious to see this movie, but feared it would wind up being some hodge-podge of BLAIR WITCH meets EVENT HORIZON or worse, something incomprehensible like DEATHWATCH.
I’m a bit on the fence with it. Parts of it are really good, but other parts bugged me.
On the plus side, the casting is good. The actors are physically unattractive, and the tension builds nicely between them. On the negative side, the characters do some pretty stupid things (Lets split up. Let me creep around at night with my headphones on. Hmmm, maybe I should listen to these tapes at home, instead of in this creepy back office -- nah!) And the “monster” was a bit too powerful. The "inside your mind", but also "inside the environment" type nemesis. If it was simply a voice on a tape, this would not have bothered me so much.
Overall the pieces add up to a pretty spooky whole, and a vicarious thrill for me to see the inside of the hospital. And the end is creepy! They’re now making this place into condominiums -- or would be if there hadn’t been those strange “accidents”.
There's a line in this movie, early on, when a minor character talks about the hospital being shutdown in the 1980s, and the inmates being released onto the streets. There's also a recurring location of a wooden gazebo where the characters eat lunch. On the sides of the gazebo are painted crucifixes as if it might have been part of an outdoor chapel.
I grew up a few towns over from the Hospital, and those crucifixes reminded me of this one summer when this crazy woman appeared in our town. Whether she was a former patient or not, I have no clue, but this would have been in the 80s. She lived in this house with her parents near a busy intersection and a grammar school. When her parents died she remained in the house.
Once alone in the place she definitely started to lose it.
First she painted the house red. Then she painted these white crucifixes all over it: on the shingles, wood railings, steps, and windows. Everywhere. She shaved her head, started to wear a monk's robe, and carved a cross on her forehead. You'd see her in the supermarket and go as fast as possible in the other direction. Surprisingly, she was kind of chubby and baby-faced, which made the black stubble on head, crucifix carved in forehead combination that much more piss-your-pants worthy.
Needless to say she was the talk of the town that summer. My mom drove us by there a few times, probably fascinated herself, but sped up so she wouldn't have to look at it. Like I said, there was a grammar school right beside the house, and I know some kids that went there. During Little League (while playing in the outfield) we would talk about the house. One of these kids told this story about how one of the teachers at the school wound up stranded after a snowstorm and had to spend a night in the house. You knew it was bullshit, because it wasn't like the house and school were miles from civilization, but on the otherhand it made you think, "What if I had to spend a night in that house?" so you loved it.
Anyways, with the school year coming on and the woman's behaviour getting more erratic, there was probably some public outcry against her, and she was put away before that September. The house remained vacant a couple of years and was resold. The new owners fixed it up and you'd never be able to tell from looking at it that this woman had lived there.
Seeing those crucifixes in the movie though... that brought all this back to me. And made my hair stand up more than anything else.
Since breaking into the hospital was always a dream of mine as a juvenile delinquent, I’ve been more than a little curious to see this movie, but feared it would wind up being some hodge-podge of BLAIR WITCH meets EVENT HORIZON or worse, something incomprehensible like DEATHWATCH.
I’m a bit on the fence with it. Parts of it are really good, but other parts bugged me.
On the plus side, the casting is good. The actors are physically unattractive, and the tension builds nicely between them. On the negative side, the characters do some pretty stupid things (Lets split up. Let me creep around at night with my headphones on. Hmmm, maybe I should listen to these tapes at home, instead of in this creepy back office -- nah!) And the “monster” was a bit too powerful. The "inside your mind", but also "inside the environment" type nemesis. If it was simply a voice on a tape, this would not have bothered me so much.
Overall the pieces add up to a pretty spooky whole, and a vicarious thrill for me to see the inside of the hospital. And the end is creepy! They’re now making this place into condominiums -- or would be if there hadn’t been those strange “accidents”.
There's a line in this movie, early on, when a minor character talks about the hospital being shutdown in the 1980s, and the inmates being released onto the streets. There's also a recurring location of a wooden gazebo where the characters eat lunch. On the sides of the gazebo are painted crucifixes as if it might have been part of an outdoor chapel.
I grew up a few towns over from the Hospital, and those crucifixes reminded me of this one summer when this crazy woman appeared in our town. Whether she was a former patient or not, I have no clue, but this would have been in the 80s. She lived in this house with her parents near a busy intersection and a grammar school. When her parents died she remained in the house.
Once alone in the place she definitely started to lose it.
First she painted the house red. Then she painted these white crucifixes all over it: on the shingles, wood railings, steps, and windows. Everywhere. She shaved her head, started to wear a monk's robe, and carved a cross on her forehead. You'd see her in the supermarket and go as fast as possible in the other direction. Surprisingly, she was kind of chubby and baby-faced, which made the black stubble on head, crucifix carved in forehead combination that much more piss-your-pants worthy.
Needless to say she was the talk of the town that summer. My mom drove us by there a few times, probably fascinated herself, but sped up so she wouldn't have to look at it. Like I said, there was a grammar school right beside the house, and I know some kids that went there. During Little League (while playing in the outfield) we would talk about the house. One of these kids told this story about how one of the teachers at the school wound up stranded after a snowstorm and had to spend a night in the house. You knew it was bullshit, because it wasn't like the house and school were miles from civilization, but on the otherhand it made you think, "What if I had to spend a night in that house?" so you loved it.
Anyways, with the school year coming on and the woman's behaviour getting more erratic, there was probably some public outcry against her, and she was put away before that September. The house remained vacant a couple of years and was resold. The new owners fixed it up and you'd never be able to tell from looking at it that this woman had lived there.
Seeing those crucifixes in the movie though... that brought all this back to me. And made my hair stand up more than anything else.
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