Horror's Hallowed Grounds: Session 9 By: Sean Clark
Session 9
By: Sean Clark
First off, I would like to say thank you to all of the readers who have e-mailed me and posted in the message forums about how much they love Horror’s Hallowed Grounds. The response to the first few articles has been overwhelming, and I appreciate it a great deal. One reader by the name of Mike Jr. went way out of his way to show his appreciation for my efforts by way of a gift. Mike contributes to the official website of the Rhode Island Science Fiction Club and also directs and edits a public access show in Rhode Island called Sci-Fi Journal. Info about the show can be found right here. Aside from all of that, Mike makes actual road signs for a living. When he noticed our HHG logo was in fact a road sign, he sent me not one, but two, full size metal road signs free of charge just as a token of his appreciation. So again, I’d like to give a big thanks to Mike Jr.!
In 2000 after the release of his second romantic comedy writer/director Brad Anderson decided he wanted to explore the darker side of cinema and teamed up with his college buddy Stephen Gevedon to write the horror film Session 9.
They wanted to base the script on a real life abandoned mental hospital they knew of in Massachusetts, Danvers State Mental Hospital. The building looms large in the small town of Danvers. Nestled in a wooded area, the enormous main building can only be seen from the nearby highway just when it peaks. Otherwise it is hidden and goes almost unnoticed to people just passing through the town of Danvers.
They had the basis of the story in mind, but they wanted to get inside the complex for further inspiration before completing the script. The hospital had been abandoned since 1992 and was not open to the public. The only means of entrance was by way of trespassing. They enlisted the help of a local internet urban explorer and spent hours exploring the virtual labyrinth that is the Kirkbride building.
After their life changing experience inside Danvers State Hospital, they knew they had a story and absolutely had to film it there. They spent a great deal of time and money securing the proper rights and permits to film inside the rundown facility. They were then able to use the facility free of charge by the Massachusetts State Film Commission. If they could not have obtained the rights to film at Danvers State Mental Hospital, Session 9M most likely would not have been made. The star of this film is the hospital.
In 1878 the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers was erected under the supervision of prominent Boston architect Nathaniel J, Bradlee. While the hospital was originally established to provide residential treatment and care to the mentally ill, its functions expanded to include a training program for nurses in 1889 and a pathological research laboratory in 1895. By the 1920's the hospital was operating school clinics to help determine mental deficiency in children. During the 1960's, as a result of increased emphasis on alternative methods of treatment, deinstitutionalization and community based mental health care, the inpatient population started to decrease. Danvers State Hospital closed on June 24, 1992, due to budget cuts within the mental health system.
Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, who served the Pennsylvania Hospital as the superintendent from 1841-1883, created a humane and compassionate environment for his patients and believed that beautiful settings restored patients to a more natural "balance of the senses." Dr. Kirkbride's progressive therapies and innovative writings on hospital design and management became known as the Kirkbride Plan, which influenced, in one form or another, almost every American state hospital by the turn of the century including Danvers.
Abandoned since 1992, the Danvers State Hospital occupies a site of over 500 acres with a commanding view of Boston 18 miles to the south. The highland area is topped by the 1874 Kirkbride Complex. The Kirkbride Complex currently consists of 17 buildings erected from 1874-1878. In addition, there is the Bonner Medical Building, which was a complete surgical facility. The Gray Gables Building was a residential facility for nurses, and it was the second such facility in the state.
After the Gray Gables closed, the Male Nurses' Home was built to replace it. Three years later the Female Nurses' home was constructed for the same purpose. St Luke’s Chapel was built to serve patients of the various Protestant faiths and Our Lady of the Hill Chapel to serve Catholic faiths. Over forty buildings were eventually constructed on the site, which encompass Hawthorne Hill and surrounding property in the Hawthorne section of Danvers.
We begin with the exterior of the building. In the beginning of the film Phil (David Caruso) and Gordon (Peter Mullan) are given a tour of the Kirkbride building by Bill Griggs (Paul Guilfoyle). Their cars are parked right in front of the center main entrance to the Kirkbride.
All of the interiors during the tour were filmed inside of the Kirkbride with the exception of the room with the hydrotherapy tub and the hallway where Griggs describes the Kirkbride as a giant bat shaped building. These were shot in the Bonner Medical Building just across from that front main entrance to the Kirkbride.
This description of the giant bat like shape to the Kirkbride is quite accurate as you can see in the diagram and aerial shot below.
The kitchen is seen several times in the film, the first being during the tour. On the audio commentary director Brad Anderson points out the American flag that appears torn on a broken window. He said he liked that imagery of the torn flag as it seemed to be a symbol of the American dream gone awry. As you can see, some of it is still there today.
They then walk from the kitchen into the room where we always see Jeff (Brendon Sexton III) riding the machine that scraps up the tiles. These two rooms are in fact connected. However, the doorway just next to it where Mike (Stephen Gevedon) always goes down to supposedly check the breaker but instead goes to the file room to listen to the session tapes actually does not lead to any stairs at all.
This area here in Ward "C" is where you see Phil and Gordon doing most of their work during the film. This is the area that is covered in plastic later in the film. As you can see, there has been some added graffiti by fans giving directions to Mary Hobbs' room. Also some added profanity by vandals.
The room Phil discovers is actually right in this hallway and still has many of the clippings glued to the wall that Gordon is looking at in the photo below.
As they finish their tour and exit the main entrance to the Kirkbride, Gordon and Griggs stop for a moment out in front to talk about the job. In the background you can see the front of the Bonner building.
There are only three actual locations used in the film. 99% of it takes place at the hospital. One of the other locations is Gordon’s house, which you only really see from the front outside.
Gordon’s house is located at 703 Lynnfield Street in Lynn, MA. This is a private residence.
The other location used was for a very brief shot of Phil sitting in a bar which is located right near Danvers State Hospital. It is the bar located at Supino’s Restaurant, 250 Newbury Street, Danvers, MA. (978) 774-0707.
The scene where Hank (Josh Lucas) is seen sitting in a living room watching TV was a set built in an empty room at Danvers State Hospital.
Just below the first floor of the hospital are a series of tunnels that were used by the hospital staff. They also used these tunnels to moves patients from different places in the building. The tunnels are really the only direct link to the entire building. The various floors can only be reached all the way across from end to end by going up and down several different stairwells. It really is a maze, and unless you know where you are going, it's easy to get lost in.
These tunnels below the first floor are where Hank was working when he finds the coins.
On the other side of the wall you can see the funnel they built to push all of the coins and things through the hole and into Hank’s hands.
In the film they cut to the other side into the morgue, which is one of the only other sets built for the film. All of the medical equipment were props brought in, and the morgue doors were all fabricated out of foam. Also, this room was not in the Kirkbride but rather in the basement of the Bonner Medical Building, which coincidentally served as the actual morgue for Danvers State Hospital. The film crew did not know this when they made the film.
Also in this tunnel area is where Hank is running from the figure that appears to be stalking him.
Below these tunnels are also a series of sub-tunnels that are pretty darn nasty. However, they were used in the film. In the scene where Phil is going to look for Hank, they use one of the ladder areas that lead to the sub-tunnels.
In one of these nasty sub-tunnels is where Phil finds Hank naked and talking to himself. After being in there, I really have to hand it to actor Josh Lucas for going the extra mile in this scene. That place is nasty as hell with your clothes on! It's also really cold because it is way under ground.
Just outside of a section of the Kirkbride is the gazebo where the men gather to have lunch.
Also outside is the walkway that Gordon stares at from a window in the building and later investigates up close.
Gordon stops to rest on the tree next to the graveyard. The tombstones visible in the scene are fakes and made out of foam. However, there is a graveyard right near there, but they have small plaques on the ground and not headstones. In the town of Middleton there is a small cemetery of former DSH patients that is open to the public and legal to visit. This graveyard is what they based the one in the film on. You can see that they copied the headstones exactly for the film.
One of the locations that surprised me was the gymnasium. It seems like this would be on the first floor but it is actually on the third floor in the back middle section of the Kirkbride.
I tried my best to take a picture from the projection booth down into the gymnasium, but it came out very dark. If you look closely, you can see where they covered up all of the fake blood with gravel.
If you look at the exit door in the background in the two photos below, you assume in the film that this leads to the outside, again making you think the gymnasium would be on the ground floor. However, that exit leads directly to stairs that put you on the rear fourth story rooftop.
At the center of the building there is a tower that overlooks the entire complex. On the way up to that tower there is a door that goes out to another rooftop. The men have a discussion about Hank’s whereabouts on this rooftop.
In the tunnel area below the first floor is where Jeff has his encounter with the lights going out as he tries to run back to the first floor. In actuality the direction Jeff is running in does not lead back to the first floor. Many people also think that those are jumpsuits hanging in the tunnel. Actually it's just a long sheet of plastic with arms attached to it.
Right at the entrance to the tunnel of arms is a little room where a lot of the crew that worked on the film carved and signed their names on the wall. On a piece of sheet metal right next to it is a lone autograph with a little drawing of an eight ball that reads, "We did asbestos we could. –Brad Anderson." I asked Brad about this, and he confirmed that it was indeed his doing.
Now we move on to the "A" ward which is for "extreme patients." This will lead us to the infamous hallway with the restraint chair and patient 444, Mary Hobbs' room.
We now enter Mary Hobbs' room.
As amazing as the location of Danvers State Mental Hospital was, it was very dangerous and also very illegal to even step foot on the grounds. It was patrolled 24 hours a day by Reliable Security Service who had at least two officers on duty at all times. One patrolled the grounds in a truck while the other remained in the security trailer to call the police if necessary. They had their own trailer that was stationed on the grounds. To top it off it was only one mile away from the Sheriff’s Department and they would absolutely arrest you and press charges for any trespassing.
They used to have problems with urban explorers and vandals breaking into the place before the release of the film Session 9 however after the release of the film people from all over the world traveled there to try to get a glimpse of the building. It is because of this that they were none too friendly to anyone who tried to get near it. If you were able some how to get inside the building you were in fact risking your life. The building was literally falling apart. There were dozens of cave-ins all over the building. You could look into any number of rooms to see that they had collapsed four stories down.
Every window in the entire complex was boarded up on the inside and outside which made it pitch dark inside the building where ever you went. If your flashlight went out you would be completely screwed.
After years of legal challenges by local preservationists to save the building a judge rejected claims by the Danvers Preservation Fund, Inc. which lead to the sale of the property to Avalon Bay the Virginia-based developer in a deal worth $12 million, sealing 22 years of discussions over the fate of the 77-acre abandoned asylum property.
Only a month after acquiring the property demolition began at Danvers in January of 2006. Avalon Bay plans to build 497 apartments and condominiums on the site.
As part of the deal, Avalon Bay agreed to create a permanent memorial honoring the legacy of former hospital patients and staff and maintain a cemetery just below the summit of Hathorne Hill.
In October of 2006 I took one last trip to Danvers and was shocked to see all that remained was a small portion of the mid section of the Kirkbride building. Although still an amazing site it was nothing like the nearly quarter mile long structure I had visited before. It was also just an empty shell surrounded by construction vehicles and brand new condominiums that looked completely out of place next to this gothic structure. It saddens me when a beautiful piece of history like this is lost forever. I am just glad that Brad Anderson’s film found me in time that I had the chance to visit it.
If you are interested in finding out more about Danvers State Mental Hospital make sure to visit http://www.danvers-state-ia.com/.
I would like to thank John Gray http://www.grayphotography.net/) for all of his help and knowledge of Danvers State Mental Hospital. Without him this article couldn’t have been possible.
Until next time the hunt continues for Horror’s Hallowed Grounds!
