Netflix’s Thriller Hypnotic came just in time for spooky season, but it’s still perfect to watch any time of year. The film, directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote, stars Kate Siegel and Jason O’Mara and takes viewers on an incredibly tense deep dive into the dark side of hypnotherapy. Since there are so many twists and turns, the end of the movie can throw you into a loop, so here’s a full breakdown of what happens.
where it all begins
Jenn (Siegel) is in trouble. She recently broke up with her fiancé Brian (Jaime M. Callica) after losing a baby. She isn’t working and is in a downward spiral, so her friend Gina (Lucie Guest) introduces her to her friend and therapist Dr. Collin Meade (O’Mara). Initially, it seems like Dr. Meade is hitting on Jenn – something she isn’t receptive to – but Gina eventually convinces her to see him for therapy. Once she visits him, she learns that he uses hypnosis to help his patients.
Dr. Meade is up to the task
Dr. Meade encourages Jenn to take Brian out to dinner one night to try and work through their issues. Unfortunately, she ended their relationship after suffering a pregnancy loss from shutting down. However, Dr. Meade discovers that Jenn still seems to care about Brian and he apparently wants to help them figure things out. However, the night of Jenn and Brian’s dinner, Jenn passes out and wakes up to find that Brian is having a severe allergic reaction to the dinner she made for them.
Brian ends up in a coma in the hospital and Jenn wonders how she could have cooked him something he’s allergic to when she knows his allergies intimately. Then she has a breakthrough, realizing that Dr. Meade hypnotized her and made her buy sesame oil to serve Brian and kept her spellbound while he struggled to breathe.
Jenn goes to Gina with her suspicions about Dr. Meade’s deceptive hypnotherapy, and after being convinced, she has Gina by her side. They do some research and discover that this is far from the first time he has been linked to mysterious accidents involving his patients, but because hypnosis is the root of the problem, the crimes have not been traced to him. . After alerting the cops, Jenn decides to tape one of her therapy sessions, but Dr. Meade is one step ahead of her.
Gina pays the price
When Dr. Meade puts Jenn under control, she unknowingly tells him the truth – that she is recording him because she suspects him of being the cause of several deaths. As a reward, Dr. Meade uses hypnosis to make Gina destroy her car with her husband in the passenger seat, killing them both. Dr. Meade also uses hypnosis to send one of his other patients after the detective in charge of the case, Det. Wade Rollins (Dule Hill).
In the meantime, Jenn begins to piece together some of the images she saw in her head during hypnosis. She sees a new therapist, who she hopes can correct some of the poison Dr. Meade planted in her head. But when Dr. Stella Graham (Tanja Dixon-Warren) subdues Jenn, they quickly learn that Dr. Meade has planted a failsafe in Jenn’s head to prevent any other therapists from breaking into the controls he planted.
The true identity of Dr. Meade, revealed
Jenn remembers Dr. Meade telling her about her mentor, and she remembers a house with an address from one of his hypnosis spells. She tells Det. Rollins that she is going to find the Mentor to see if he can help her defeat Dr. Meade. When she arrives home, however, she finds that the mentor is actually Dr. Meade’s father and that his name isn’t Meade at all. That’s when Dr. Meade arrives and finds Jenn at home.
Suddenly, Jenn wakes up in Dr. Meade’s office and calls Det. Rollins to save her. But she soon realizes she’s under a spell from Dr. Meade again, and he’s convinced her that she’s at his office when they’re actually at his house, so Det. Rollins sends the police to the wrong place. Dr. Meade tells him that the reason behind everything he has done is that he wants to replace his dead wife. The previous women who died at his hands weren’t quite right – aesthetically they were, but they all had something wrong with them. Then he discovered Jenn and decided she was perfect.
The flashes of scenes she “remembered” were actually Dr. Meade’s memories with his wife that he had planted in his head so that she could eventually take over as his wife. Fortunately, Det. Rollins shows up and the three end up in a fight. Jenn manages to get Det. Rollins’ gun as he and Dr. Meade fight, and it fires a shot before the screen goes blank.
Jenn breaks Dr. Meade’s spell
When Jenn wakes up on a couch, Det. Rollins comforts her, reassuring her that they had taken care of Dr. Meade. But then Det. Rollins leans over and calls her “My love”, something Dr. Meade had called her during the session she recorded and performed for Dr. Graham. Although her new psychotherapist told her she couldn’t remove the commands that Dr. Meade had planted in her head, she planted another command that would hopefully replace the ones that Dr. Meade had planted. She ordered her to ignore any further instructions and see the real world around her if anyone called her “My love”.
When “Detective Rollins” called her that, she came to her senses – because she was hypnotized again! – and realized it was Dr. Meade holding her. She had actually shot Det. Rollin. Jenn manages to get Det. Rollins’ gun and shoot Dr. Meade, killing him once and for all.
Jenn gets her happy ending, especially
The ending takes place a month in the future, with Dr. Meade permanently gone. Jenn seems to be doing well, although Brian hasn’t been so lucky. He’s still in the hospital in a coma, but now he has Jenn, who promises to be by his side when he wakes up. Later, Jenn visits Det. Rollins at his desk. He got a promotion and gives Jenn a gift as a sign of appreciation. The movie ends with her opening the gift and laughing: It’s a self-hypnosis CD. Alright, Det. Rollin!
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