Twenty-five years after Session 9, Brad Anderson wants a prequel about Mary Hobbes - no cast, no date, just a pitch from a convention stage
A quarter-century on from Session 9, Brad Anderson is cooking up a prequel — and wait till you hear who it shadows and what he’s calling it.
If you were around for the original Session 9 back in the early noughties, that film’s shadowy corridors might still haunt you. Now, a quarter of a century later, there’s talk of going back—only not to the creepy hospital, but to the story’s roots. Brad Anderson, the director behind Session 9’s cult success, has announced at a recent anniversary screening that a prequel is in the works, with the working title Session 1. Here’s what we know so far—and frankly, what we might never have expected Anderson to dig up.
Session 9 celebrated its 25th anniversary this year—an unnervingly long time for that film’s uncanny voice recordings to echo in people’s heads.
The conversation happened at Mass Mini Con during a special screening of Session 9, where both Anderson and Stephen Gevedon (who co-wrote and starred in the original) did a Q&A with fans. Their comments were first spotted by those ever-watchful horror obsessives over at Bloody Disgusting, who picked them up from Broke Horror Fan’s Alex DiVincenzo. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that even horror’s most unassuming side events can feed the rumour mill.
Not a return to Danvers
The primary tease is that this prequel, dubbed Session 1, would finally unravel the story of Mary Hobbes—the troubled figure whose past hangs over Session 9 but is never really shown. In Anderson’s words to the crowd, they’ve had this idea in the works for a bit, and the plan is to trace Mary’s trajectory back to her childhood in late-1960s Boston. Forget the haunted asbestos-laced halls (especially as the actual Danvers building’s been demolished in real life); this time it’s about what led to Mary’s breakdown—and specifically, everything leading up to the family murder that kicks off the horror in session nine’s infamous tapes. In his own words at the event:
‘It’s about her life, growing up in the late ’60s in Boston, and what happened to her and how she got possessed. And how she killed her family. I’m saying that because we’re trying to get that movie off the ground and we think there’s an audience for that.’
The goal is to fill in the bits you were left guessing about after the original—how Mary ended up in such a state, and maybe, what actually possessed her (if you believe in that sort of thing). Going by Anderson’s description, the film would stay ambiguous on whether the horror really is supernatural or just a product of a mind unraveling—which, seriously, is the ingredient that’s kept Session 9 so talked about over the years.
Session 9’s lasting legacy
Just in case you need a refresher, the 2001 film had Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Josh Lucas, Steven Gevedon, and Brendan Sexton III playing a hazmat crew clearing out the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital. The tension came less from jump scares, more from the surprisingly layered mystery—were the tapes proof of haunting, possession, or simply mental collapse brought on by the job from hell? That question’s never entirely answered, which is likely why horror fans still argue about it decades after the fact.
At this stage, Session 1 has no cast, no release date, and no production schedule—the project is purely in the development phase, as Anderson made clear. That said, there’s at least a pitch, and he seems convinced enough in the audience’s appetite for a Mary-centred story to say it out loud onstage.
For the viewers who’ve long wondered exactly what happened to Mary Hobbes before her voice haunted those infamous Sessions, it might be the closest we ever get to answers. Or at the very least, another round of unsettling VHS-static dread.