Film
Session 9
Session 9 drops a low-paid asbestos crew into the crumbling corridors of a real abandoned Massachusetts asylum, then lets the building do the talking. Brad Anderson directs it like a slow leak rather than a jump scare, trusting concrete and echo to unsettle you. It's patient, grim, and more interested in what men carry inside them than in what haunts the walls.
If you liked this
The Shining1980
Kubrick turns an empty hotel into a pressure cooker for one family's unraveling sanity—cavernous corridors, ominous quiet, dread that never needs a jump scare to land.
But It's been endlessly parodied and analyzed—you may already know every image before you press play.

Jacob's Ladder1990
A Vietnam vet's reality keeps splitting at the seams in this hallucinatory, deeply unsettling descent—psychological horror that trusts confusion as much as fear.
But The fractured timeline and dream logic can frustrate anyone wanting a straight answer by the end.

The Changeling1980no page yet
George C. Scott grieves inside a house that keeps insisting on its own dead—an old-school ghost story built entirely on sound, silence, and slow-dawning horror.
But Its restraint might read as sluggish if you're used to horror that shows its hand fast.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Haunting1963
Session 9 strips its horror down to architecture and psychology exactly like this 1963 film did first—no ghost effects, just a building working on people's minds.
Robert Wise proved decades before Session 9 that a house can terrify with nothing but doors, drafts, and dialogue—one of the purest haunted-house films ever made.
But Black-and-white and stagey by today's standards, it demands patience if you're used to modern pacing.

More like this (8)
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum2018no page yet
A crew livestreams their way into a real-feeling abandoned asylum and the found-footage dread escalates fast—claustrophobic, loud, and genuinely rattling by the finale.
But Shaky handheld camerawork and a barrage of jump scares are miles from Session 9's slow-burn patience.
Grave Encounters2011no page yet
A ghost-hunting reality-TV crew gets locked inside an abandoned psychiatric hospital for real, and the film turns their own fakery into something genuinely frightening.
But It's schlockier and cheaper-looking than Session 9, with humor and gore where the original had silence.
The Blair Witch Project1999
Three people wander into the woods and the dread builds entirely from what you don't see—minimalist horror that proved suggestion beats spectacle.
But The shaky-cam style feels dated now, and some viewers just find it boring rather than scary.

The Others2001
A mother isolates her photosensitive children in a fog-bound mansion where something is very wrong, building dread through atmosphere until its late, unsettling turn.
But Its twist is well-known by now, which drains some of the film's carefully built tension.

American Horror Story2011
An entire season set inside a decaying 1960s mental institution, packed with ghosts, aliens, Nazis, and every horror idea Ryan Murphy could fit in—gloriously unhinged.
But It's a whole season's commitment, and the camp and chaos are the opposite of Session 9's restraint.

Silent Hill2006no page yet
A mother searches a fog-choked, decaying town for her daughter in this video-game adaptation that turns institutional decay into full-blown nightmare imagery.
But It leans hard into gore and fantasy monsters, trading Session 9's ambiguity for full visible horror.
Cropsey2010
Where Session 9 imagines an asylum's dark history seeping into its cleanup crew, Cropsey investigates that exact phenomenon for real.
A real investigation into an abandoned Staten Island institution and the urban legend it spawned—true crime and horror atmosphere colliding in ways fiction can't quite match.
But It's a documentary, slower and more digressive, and its horror is real tragedy rather than fictional scares.

The Wages of Fear1953
Same engine as Session 9: a small, underpaid crew, a wretched job, and the way physical danger curdles into psychological collapse—just recast as pure survival thriller.
Four desperate men drive trucks of nitroglycerin across ruined roads in this classic thriller, where the tension comes purely from a job that could kill them at any bump.
But There's no supernatural element at all—if you wanted a haunted building, this is just nerve-shredding suspense.

People
Cast
Peter MullanGordon
David CarusoPhil
Stephen GevedonMike
Josh LucasHank
Paul GuilfoyleBill Griggs
Larry FessendenCraig McManus- Charley BroderickSecurity Guard
Lonnie FarmerDoctor (voice)
Sheila StasackWendy (voice)- Jurian HughesMary Hobbes (voice)
Directing
- Brad AndersonDirector
- Kelly CroninScript Supervisor
Writing
- Brad AndersonScreenplay
- Stephen GevedonScreenplay
Production
- Georgianne WalkenCasting
- Sheila JaffeCasting
- Katharina EggmannCasting Associate
- John SlossExecutive Producer
- Maura TigheLocal Casting
- Nancy DoyleLocal Casting
- David CollinsProducer
- Dorothy AufieroProducer
- Michael WilliamsProducer
- Karen CorsicaProduction Coordinator
Recommended by
The Others, Stir of Echoes, Jacob's Ladder, The Woman in Black, The Shining, The Stone Tape, The Descent, The Haunting, Triangle, Lake Mungo