As the other commentor said, fear is of course, subjective. And I am not going to tell someone they are 'wrong' for not finding a movie scary.
I love horror movies, so I have favourites in all the various subgenres. My favourite slasher film is the original Black Christmas; favourite 'satanic haunting' movie is Rosemary's Baby; favourite found footage flick is Home Movie; etc.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand, Session 9, for me, is one of the scariest movies...ever. Part of that could be due to lack of expectations on my part: I picked up this film from the Blockbuster in 2002 because I couldn't find anything I wanted to see, and I figured since David Caruso was in it, it couldn't be too terrible. (Boy was I pleasantly surprised)
I think the film succeeds in atmosphere. There's a quiet, softly-menacing build up to the horror and reveals of the last act. And this slow, but sure-footed pace had me completely enthralled, and allowed me to invest in the characters.
But if I had to pinpoint the reason why this movie scares me so much, the reason why, over a decade later, I still find myself unwittingly thinking of scenes from this movie when I hear a bump in the night, I would have to point to the scene when we hear Mary/Simon confess to murdering her brother. There is something incredibly disturbing about hearing that strange, almost inhuman voice casually admit to brutally slaying that young boy. And the parallel between this past event and the violence Gordon perpetrates on his family and friends is chilling as well. The film underscores the fact that, under the right circumstances, even our loved ones could snap and commit violence against us.
So that, right there, is why this film unsettles me so much. But I could understand why others might not feel the same way.
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