Kirkbride Mental Health Hospital, built in 1871 is being reclaimed as a town hall and renovated after being closed down nearly fifteen years earlier in 1985. Hazmat Elimination Company, an asbestos removal company run by Gordon Fleming (played by Peter Mullan) and his associate Phil (played by David Carusoe), are the first to start on the renovation of the building. The film opens with a lightly humoured tour through the asylum led by Bill Griggs (a cameo by Paul Guilfoyle) as Gordon and Phil get their first glimpse of the aforementioned mad house. Distracted by ghastly rooms and one hallway in particular, Gordon hears a voice call out to him but is snapped back to reality by partner Phil. After the heebie-jeebies have been established cut to a scene of Gordon sitting alone in his truck as he fawns over pictures of his newborn and watches her and his wife as they play out front of their home. This scene is cut short by terrible screams and a haunting feeling that perhaps all is not well in the Fleming household.Now cue Gordon's employees: Hank (played by Josh Lucas), Gordon's nephew Jeff (Brandon Sexton III), and Mike (Stephen Gevedon) a former lawschool student who's father was the district attorney who indirectly led to the closing of Kirkbride through a patient's lawsuit in 1984.As the film glides along with horror stories of old, employee banter, and Gordon's increasingly distant behaviour, Mike finds some old recorded sessions (labeled 1-9) in an office while checking a generator and Hank stumbles upon coins from the 1800's in another part of the building. Mike begins stealing time away from the job to sneak downstairs and listen to the recorded sessions which are centered around patient #444 Mary Hobbes, a patient with multiple personalities. As the week continues Gordon becomes more irritable, Mike continues deeper into the sessions and Hank heads back late at night, for the silver dollar payload, and mysteriously disappears.After Hank's disappearance the rest of the crew becomes more and more edgy as the week continues. Gordon's history with his distant wife comes to light, Phil's anger and impatience with Gordon becomes a factor and all the while Mike gets closer and closer to the end of the sessions with Mary Hobbes. You begin to see the number 444 show more often in the film on rooms and tombstones, and Gordon reveals to Phil that he hit his wife by accident that night after their tour of the asylum. Phil goes to Mike with this news recommending that Gordon could use some time off, all the while unbeknownst to them Gordon listens from around the corner. Just then Hank is found wandering the halls by Jeff.As Jeff runs to tell the others Hank disappears again and the manhunt is on. With flaring tension between Phil and Gordon, Mike and Jeff swimming in a sea of apprehensive paranoia and the manhunt for the missing Hank, the story reaches its climax with a shot of each character alone against the unseen villian. The film is tied together as a replacement employee for Hank arrives for work and searches the seemingly abandoned Hospital for Gordon and the others. Come to the room where Hank lies on the floor still breathing, Phil telling Gordon to wake up , and the arrival of the new employee. It is revealed through flashbacks that Gordon has now killed each one of his employees, nephew, wife and child. The stress of life had caught up with Gordon and after killing the man who had just arrived and realized his deadly misgivings; the film ends with Gordon apologizing to his dead wife on a broken phone and the voice who has been calling to him throughout the film is revealed as Simon, Mary Hobbes' third personality. Simon caps the movies finish as he speaks on the the final recorded session as the one who "live(s) in the weak, and the wounded."
Output: Question: What number keeps appearing in the film?, Answer: 444