8 Horror Movies Twice As Terrifying On The Second Watch
2. Session 9
The setting sounds cliche at the start: an abandoned insane asylum, waiting to be refurbished for a new use. But Session 9 takes a simple concept and mines it for untold depths of horror as we watch the members of an asbestos removal crew toil away inside the asylum as the story unfolds.
The film is psychological horror at its finest, exploring darkness in various forms - sometimes petty, sometimes profound - through the lives and foibles of the characters. One character even suffers from a fear of the dark, a childhood phobia that feels totally natural after an initial viewing of the film.
On subsequent viewings, you're less fixated on what's going on - since you know more answers the second time around - and you're allowed to luxuriate in the horrors of both the setting and the story you might've missed during the jump scares and character building of the first viewing.
In particular, you're left to wonder - to ponder, with deepening horror - where the tipping point is, the moment when the human mind snaps and can take no more, the point of no return.