The star of the recent Netflix mini-series Midnight Mass, Kate Siegel has taken over the horror genre, working alongside director Mike Flanagan, and has become an almost uncontested horror queen. With its heart-pumping trailer and the actress's presence, Siegel's most recent movie Hypnotic has set the fans' expectations high, only to leave many of them puzzled and disappointed. The movie follows the story of Jenn Tompson (Siegel), who experienced a miscarriage and, on strong advice from her friend, seeks the help of the psychotherapist, Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O'Mara), who specializes in hypnosis. Meade (apparently, not for the first time) abuses his power and takes control over Jenn's mind, causing her to experience blackouts, during which she commits actions that serve the doctor's agenda.
In recent years, Kate Siegel has become inseparable from Mike Flanagan, who also happens to be her husband, starring in most of his movies. The horror power couple has taken Netflix by storm, delivering masterpieces that included Hush, Gerald's Game, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the most recent Midnight Mass. Flanagan and Siegel met on the set of his first-ever horror film Oculus, starring Guardians of the Galaxy's and Doctor Who's Karen Gillan, and have forged a successful professional and personal relationship that spawned so many horror fan favorites.
Hypnotic, however, has been directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote with a script by Richard D'Ovidio, bringing a different direction and tone to the movie and pushing Siegel out of her comfort zone. Despite that, the fact that she was cast as a lead actress was enough for many fans to get excited and hope for the usual stark performance and tingling tension that made her Flanagan movies so great. So, what went wrong?
Hypnotic's Misleading Trailer
The best trailers are meant to create excitement and show glimpses of the upcoming movie without revealing its main twists or giving away too many details — otherwise, they might as well be called 'recaps.' Unfortunately, Hypnotic's trailer did the exact opposite. It showed most of the exciting scenes, revealed the villain, his past, and even some of his motivations. With that out in the open, the movie that is pretty straightforward, to begin with, had little else to offer its audience.
On top of that, the trailer's final scene where Meade tells Jenn that she can wake up now suggested an almost Inception-like twist, which, in reality, can barely compare to what the movie delivered.
The Big Reveal: Hypnotic's Final Twist
The fans of Flanagan and Siegel came to expect a mind-bending final twist that puts the pieces together and throws all expectations and predictions up in the air. In The Haunting of Hill House, it was the Bent-Neck Lady, in The Haunting of Bly Manor — the narrator, and in Midnight Mass — the vampires. In Hypnotic, however, the villain is painfully obvious from the very beginning. And while fans might have hoped for an unexpected turn, alas, the evil hypnotherapist really is the one to blame.
On top of that, the movie's very title removes any doubts that the audience might have had and makes the supposedly mysterious elevator opening scene plain obvious. It's similar to if The Silence of the Lambs was called 'Buffalo Bill is Sewing People Suits in Lippman's House.'
Inexplicable Actions of Hypnotic's Characters
Siegel's character in Hush is resourceful, smart, and responds to jeopardy with speedy ingenuity. Side characters in other Flanagan movies are also relatable and mostly make logical (or at least in-line with their characters) choices. However, in Hypnotic, some of Jenn's or her friends' actions can only be met with facepalms.
Why would the main heroine Google her new therapist, whom she trusts to meddle with her head, only after she almost kills her ex-boyfriend? Why would her friend, who is already aware that Meade can make people do things by simply talking to them, picks up a call from an unknown number, and, what's even more puzzling, why wouldn't she hang up when she hears the doctor's voice? Why would a detective (Dulé Hill) go to a suspect's home without backup? Why would Jenn go to Xavier Sullivan's house on her own, on the day that was clearly implanted in her head, even if she thought she was going to see her torturer's mentor, who, by the way, is known for his mind-control abilities? There are too many questions, unlikely scenarios, and not-so-smart choices to make the characters relatable or even sympathetic.
Inaccurate Representation of Hypnosis
In the movie, hypnotherapy is presented as some magic technique that grants the therapist unlimited power over their patients — so much so that a couple of words from Meade can invoke hallucinations, put a person into a trance, or even paralyze them. According to Hypnotic, all a doctor has to do to achieve that is use the person's full name and a trigger phrase, the highly debatable concept that was made popular by movies like Telefon, Serenity, and Captain America: Civil War, where sleeper agents get activated once they hear a keyword.
In reality, hypnosis is a useful technique that, when used correctly, can help patients abandon bad habits, recover repressed memories, and deal with many psychological issues, including depression and anxiety. While using key phrases (always chosen by the client) can help accelerate the deep relaxation state, on average, it takes the most skilled therapists at least a couple of minutes to get a person into a trance. By choosing excitement and easy scares over accurate representation of this medical technique, Hypnotic achieves only one thing — giving real-life hypnotherapists a bad reputation.
While some people enjoyed Hypnotic as an entertaining and easy Halloween watch, many fans of Siegel's previous work found it lacking suspense, exciting twists, relatable characters, and even decent scares. The actress is currently involved in a series adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife, based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, while Flanagan is working on the next Netflix horror series, The Midnight Club. The fans can only hope that the pair will reunite again soon, producing more of the high-quality, nail-biting movies that became their trademark and earned them a relentlessly loyal following.