‘Hypnotic’ Review: The Doctor Is Dangerous
In Netflix’s new thriller, a depressed woman gets more than she bargained for when she starts seeing a charismatic hypnotherapist.In “Hypnotic,” Jenn (Kate Siegel) is a software engineer who has been dealing with depression and loss. She tells her new hypnotherapist, Dr. Meade (Jason O’Mara), that she’d like to “pass” on his specialized form of treatment. Still, he cajoles her into a session, and when she comes back from her hypnosis, he seems eerily pleased.“I think you might be more open to suggestibility than you imagine,” he tells her.Though this happens within the first 20 minutes of the film, directed by Suzanne Coote and Matt Angel and written by Richard D’Ovidio, it is hardly the first red flag against Dr. Meade. He has already courted Jenn at a house party for one of his other clients, allowed someone else to schedule Jenn’s first appointment for her without her consent, and set his therapy sessions in an office that makes the Death Star look like Disneyland. We get it: This guy is bad news, and Jenn is in trouble.While the resulting cat-and-mouse dynamic is predictable, particularly if you’ve ever watched a Lifetime movie, “Hypnotic” takes its cartoonishness to admirable heights. Not only is Dr. Meade an unethical therapist, he is basically a supervillain, his nefarious practices blurring the line between hypnosis and outright mind control. Drop a lovable lead into that mix, and — as long as you don’t take anything too seriously — you’ve got a nice little popcorn flick.And Jenn is certainly lovable. She is self-destructive but self-aware — she wants to sleep more, drink less, be happy. When she first sees Dr. Meade’s hostile office space, she jokingly calls it “cozy.” Siegel, who viewers might know from other Netflix chillers like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Hush,” is notably more winsome here than in past roles. Her accessibility keeps the story from nose-diving into self-seriousness, a necessity in a film that tries to explain its villain’s own impossible powers by name-dropping the Central Intelligence Agency’s MK-Ultra experiments.As Dr. Meade terrorizes Jenn and her allies, including her former fiancé (Jaime M. Callica), her best friend (Lucie Guest) and a shrewd detective (Dulé Hill), “Hypnotic” tiptoes on the line between enjoyable and ridiculous. It’s akin to — but definitely nimbler than — “Sightless,” another disempowered-woman thriller that was on Netflix earlier this year.The twists in “Hypnotic” may not be brilliant, but they are abundant, making for the sort of straight-to-streaming treat best enjoyed on a couch, with company who will laugh with you and let you yell at the screen.HypnoticNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More
