Guillermo del Toro is more than just a director. He’s an archivist and expert on all things horror, gothic, and monstrous. A true treasure of a human, del Toro has spent his career translating folkloric nightmares and real-world horrors into films like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water, movies that feel both lovingly crafted and intellectually curious.
Having shepherded horror and dark fantasy onto mainstream award show stages while remaining an eternally devoted student of the genre, this passion for discussing monsters as metaphors and treating horror as a deliberate art form is one of many reasons why del Toro’s recommendations carry more weight than your average celebrity endorsement. But let’s be real, there’s also a special kind of glee that’s elicited when someone as respected and knowledgeable as del Toro name-drops a movie we personally love to champion as well.
Case in point, I’m never not thinking about the fact that Guillermo del Toro is a fan of Brad Anderson’s 2001 psychological horror movie Session 9. Back in 2016, del Toro took to Twitter and called Session 9 “one of the best (and first) horror movies of this century. Anderson has complete command of the medium.” High praise indeed, from one of the best to ever do it, but also praise that is very much deserved.
Even though more than a few years have passed since Session 9’s initial release, the movie remains a haunting, genuinely unnerving, underseen modern classic. For the unfamiliar, Session 9 follows an asbestos-abatement crew that takes a job cleaning out the decaying halls of the Danvers State Mental Hospital. Before long, the crew begins to fracture under the building’s oppressive atmosphere and haunted history.
Starring David Caruso (with one of the best line deliveries of all time), Peter Mullan, Josh Lucas, Stephen Gevedon, and Brendan Sexton III, Session 9 is a claustrophobic slow-burn nightmare that uses sound, space, texture, and classic horror techniques to keep the tension high and attention rapt. It’s the kind of economical, atmosphere-first filmmaking that has continued to resonate with casual horror hounds and genre auteurs alike.
So if you care about atmospheric terror that privileges suggestion over spectacle, take del Toro’s tip seriously. Session 9 is definitely one of those films that grows on you, then refuses to leave. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Turn off the lights, cue the tapes, and see why a master of monsters says this one belongs in the modern horror hall of fame.
Session 9 is currently available to rent or purchase on VOD, and on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory.
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