Jenn Thompson (Kate Siegel, “The Haunting of Hill House”) is a mess. She suffers both physically and emotionally after giving birth to a stillborn baby, breaking up with her fiance and losing her job. She needs help – at least that’s what her friend Gina (Lucie Guest, “Ring of Deception”) is passively and aggressively suggesting when Jenn appears at her house looking extremely exhausted. What better way to approach these inner struggles than through hypnotherapy?
“Hypnotic” is a horror thriller that follows Jenn on her journey to recovery, except as she continues to drift further and further away from a healthy state of mind. The first act of the film takes place quite slowly, with several scenes devoted to developing Jenn in the mess that she is. People around her seem to judge her mental state even though she has tragically recently given birth to a stillborn baby. Yet Gina’s only offer of support comes after she called Jenn’s life a “shit vortex” and forced her into therapy with Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara, “Son Of Batman ”).
But the film ends up hanging on. After Jenn agrees to hypnotherapy with Dr. Meade, she begins to experience memory loss. A few days later, she suddenly can’t remember bits of time; one moment, in particular, is when she prepares a meal for her ex-fiance with sesame oil, to which he is allergic. While the premise is interesting and offers a lot of potential for some wild twists and turns, the film ultimately disappoints in terms of the storyline.
“Hypnotic” tends to bend the rules for the convenience of the plot. Since the true laws of hypnosis aren’t rigidly defined, the film uses them as it sees fit. There is a point when Dr. Meade tells Jenn to “sleep”, which forces her to fall to the floor. Still, she is able to reach and grab something on the ground, which she couldn’t do on the previous date. There are other instances of inconsistency where Jenn may or may not come out of the hypnotic trance that Dr. Meade puts her into. It’s a bit confusing and especially frustrating to see Siegel, a talented actress, stuck in a passive role.
As a horror movie fan, Siegel is one of my favorite thriller actresses. She plays Maddie, the deaf protagonist who must fight an intruder in her house in “Silence“and Theodora, the strong and somewhat closed middle child in”The Haunting of Hill House. “These two characters are tough and take control of their actions. But in ‘Hypnotic,’ Jenn just seems to react to whatever happens to her for most of the movie. Yes, she’s under hypnosis for much of the movie; However, it is still difficult to see Siegel simply reacting to major events, knowing how active and in control she has been in her past roles. Siegel does play a strong and gritty protagonist well, but in this role she seems to go through them. movements.
The movie still offers some decent twists and turns that I enjoyed. But if it didn’t, the movie wouldn’t be a thriller. “Hypnotic” seems to do the bare minimum for a thriller that has the potential to really go where it wants to go. If mind control and hypnosis are possible, the options are endless. Instead, the filmmakers seemed to tick off their to-do list in the thriller – creating temporary suspense and anxiety – and call it a day. What makes a great thriller is the feeling that there might be a surprise at some point, and that feeling doesn’t persist throughout “Hypnotic”.
Although technically meeting the thriller’s necessities, “Hypnotic” lacks qualities that would take the film to the next level. I guess I’m disappointed because the principle of hypnosis offers endless possibilities that we ultimately didn’t take advantage of. Plus, Kate Siegel could have had more to work with. In the end, “Hypnotic” settles down where it could have taken off.
Daily Arts Editor Laura Millar can be reached at [email protected].
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