Review: Hypnotic

Directed by: Matt Angel & Suzanne Coote

Written by: Richard D’Ovidio

Starring: Kate Siegel, Jason O’Mara, Dulé Hill, Lucie Guest, Jaime M. Callica, Tanja Dixon-Warren

Rating: [3/5]

Sharing the repressed feelings and issues emanating from one’s mind requires a high amount of vulnerability, especially when sharing it with a relatively unfamiliar person. It makes the job of a therapist that much more important, which Hypnotic realizes and ensures to utilize this trust in smashing it to smithereens with a therapist going beyond the pale. Tense, a bit loony, and overall fairly enjoyable, this feature does just enough. 

Generally dealing with anxiety in her life, Jnn (Kate Siegel) receives a recommendation to utilize the services of a psychotherapist, Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara), who specializes in hypnotic therapy. As she begins her sessions, she sees the horrific reality of this treatment and the power it gives Dr. Meade over her. 

With a fairly straightforward plot, Hypnotic seeks to utilize the fairly shlocky idea of hypnotization in the space of legitimate medical practice. The actual ability of hypnotization to generally make someone do anything can certainly be argued but that does not stop a good fictional story to sensationalize the idea for plot purposes thus giving us this film. For all the issues this feature may carry, we get another chance to watch Kate Siegel perform as an actor, which deserves plenty of praise. 

In this film, she needs to carry everything in order to make it work, which ultimately allows the whole experience to be somewhat enjoyable. She comes with the ability to elevate this material beyond being another forgettable thriller as displayed in her other horror fare on the same platform, Netflix. She brings her captivating look while utilizing the dread and fear from this circumstance to craft something wholly frightening through the perspective of the character. Caring for her throughout this ordeal does plenty to make us care about what experiences and must escape for her own safety. This does plenty for the story, especially when it carries some deficiencies. 

Quite evident in this feature is the gender dynamics on display when you have Dr. Meade utilizing hypnotization on mostly women clients within his practice. The fact a man seeks to have this type of power over a woman even under the guise of medical purposes does raise an eyebrow. Any woman perturbed at the start of this circumstance in relinquishing control to some man would not have what transpires in this film any more comforting or will soothe that fear. Dr. Meade very much likes his ability to utilize this type of therapy on women where he gets to direct them to do whatever he wants making him a next-level creep and a dangerous one at that. 

When we get to the hypnotization scenes, it demonstrates the mental descent it causes for Jenn as she battles with the control of her own mental well-being when he utilizes the triggering word to put her in this state. We see this with Jenn but also with others where these characters see something they believe to be real, which does not match what reality bears. In fact, Dr. Meade utilizes the very fear these individuals have to torture them like claustrophobia for one and arachnophobia for another, which certainly has the potential to have some dire consequences as displayed throughout the feature. It does get a bit silly in moments just how much power this supposed hypnotization carries, but we’re here for the entertainment. 

Ticking just enough boxes, Hypnotic takes quite the heightened use of hypnotization to make for a somewhat compelling thriller. It demonstrates the perverse whims of some men in the way they would approach women and allow someone like Dr. Meade to take full advantage of it for his own pleasure. The feature creates some fun sequences of this hypnotization on display allowing for Kate Siegel to deliver in a role she absolutely ate up and saved it from falling from complete and utter mediocrity. Certainly, a film one can easily stream and get some basic entertainment out of but will not necessarily blow anyone away through its filmmaking and mining any new ground on the material.