Hypnotic (2021 film)

A woman (Andrea) is all alone in a building and receives a phone call telling her, "This is how the world ends". The elevator walls apparently close in on her and she cries.

Jenn, a software engineer, arrives at her friend Gina's party and sees her ex-boyfriend, Brian. She also meets a psychotherapist called Dr. Meade and gets his business card. Gina suggests that Jenn talk to Meade about her problems. At Meade's office the next day, Jenn talks about how she met Brian in college, and was engaged to him, but had a miscarriage after 6 months. Meade suggests hypnotherapy, which is good for dealing with such trauma. After an hour of hypnosis, Jenn feels like it lasted only 3 minutes and doesn't remember anything. That night, she dreams of Meade lying with her in bed.

After a couple of weeks, Meade sees her at a store asks her out for a cup of coffee. He reveals that he was married to Amy, but she died. He also suggests that Jenn invite Brian to her place for dinner that evening. She immediately goes into a trance and wakes up at her home at the dining table. She hears choking in the bathroom, and sees Brian lying in the bathtub, and admits him to a hospital.

Gina speaks to Jenn who says she remembers being at the store, then sitting at the dinner table, but nothing in-between. She sees Meade again and he asks about Brian. She replies that Brian has been at the hospital for several days, and hasn't recovered, and wonders if she might be responsible for his condition. Meade asks Jenn to put her trust in him and not doubt his work. Jenn goes home and sees a grocery list with sesame oil which Brian is allergic to, and recalls Meade speaking to her after she saw him at the store.

Jenn performs an internet search for Meade, which turns up police cases, including bank robbery. Some of his patients reported "missing time" after his sessions with them. Gina and Jenn go to the police station and meet up with detective Rollins, who shows them a video of a patient of Meade, Andrea, getting a phone call and then having a heart attack inside an elevator. Gina confesses being hypnotized by Meade.

Jenn calls Meade for another hypnosis session, and records the session on her phone. After the session is over, she goes to her car and plays the conversation, where Meade asks why she came in, and she honestly replies that she is recording the session, because she is aware of Andrea. Jenn then calls Gina, who tells her she's driving with her boyfriend Scott and is getting a call from an unknown number. The call with Jenn breaks up, and Gina hears Meade telling her, "This is how the world ends". Gina hallucinates that there's a tarantula on her dress and crashes into a truck, killing both Scott and herself.

Rollins goes to see Meade in his office and informs him about a pattern - that all of the patients who underwent hypnosis under Meade have wound up dead. Rollins grabs a spoon from Meade's office to lift fingerprints off it.

Jenn is at home, and Rollins visits her, warns her about Meade, and then leaves. Jenn hears the door knock again and opens the door thinking it's Rollins, but it is actually Meade and he forces his way in. He asks her to freeze, and says that Rollins will be taken care of. As he leaves, he asks Jenn to relax, and she immediately unfreezes. She tries calling Rollins, but is unable to get through, since his phone has no charge.

Rollins goes home, and watches TV while having dinner. Suddenly, a women attacks him with a knife, but he manages to knock her out. Jenn sees Rollins at the hospital and he says he has insufficient evidence to pin the attack on Meade. Jenn asks if a police hypnotist can uncover what Meade did to her, and Rollins recommends Stella. Jenn is hypnotized by Stella and is asked to recollect everything in her sessions with Meade, but she starts having convulsions. Stella says Meade might have planted a "fail-safe" and plants a counter-trigger into Jenn's mind.

Jenn remembers a house address in her dreams, and Meade speaking about his mentor, Dr. Xavier Sullivan. Jenn goes to that house, in spite of Rollins dissuading her from doing so. The house seems empty, and Jenn sees a photo of Meade with his ex-wife, who looks eerily similar to herself. Meade sneaks up behind her, and reveals that Xavier was his father, who left the place to him upon death. He asks Jenn to "sleep" and she immediately falls down.

Rollins gets a phone call saying the fingerprints belonged to a "Julian Sullivan". He calls Jenn who says she's now in Meade's office, and that the door is locked. Rollins collects his gun and gets a police squad to Meade's office, but they find it to be empty. Meanwhile, Meade asks Jenn to wake up, and she realizes that she's in fact at his house and not in his office. She's unable to move, and Meade takes a ring and proposes to her. She understands that he planted memories in her head to replace his lost wife.

Rollins drives to Xavier's house, and a fight ensues. Jenn shoots at them, and wakes up to see Rollins comforting her, addressing her as "my love". The counter-trigger placed by Stella was that if Meade ever refers to her with the words "my love", the other triggers in her head will be eliminated. Thus, Jenn comes out of her spell and sees that it is not Rollins but Meade holding her in his hands. She slaps him and runs to see Rollins bleeding due to a gunshot wound on his shoulder. He whispers "ankle" and she grabs his gun from the ankle holster and kills Meade.

A month later, Jenn is at the hospital with Brian. Rollins has been promoted and gifts Jenn a CD titled "better sleep with hypnosis".

• Kate Siegel as Jenn Tompson
• Jason O'Mara as Dr. Collin Meade
• Dulé Hill as Detective Wade Rollins
• Lucie Guest as Gina Kelman
• Jaime M. Callica as Brian Rawley
• Tanja Dixon-Warren as Dr. Stella Graham
• Luc Roderique as Scott Kelman
• Devyn Dalton as Tabby
• Stephanie Cudmore as Andrea Bowen
• Jessie Fraser as Amy
• Darien Martin as Squad Leader
• Madeleine Kelders as Female Executive

{{Rotten Tomatoes prose|24|4.3|21|ref=yes|access-date=20 January 2024}} On Metacritic, Hypnotic holds a score of 33 out of 100 based on 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.{{Metacritic film|title=Hypnotic}}. Retrieved October 29, 2021.

The Guardian{{'s}} Benjamin Lee gave the film 1/5 stars, writing, "For someone under the spell, an hour can feel like a minute, an enviable experience for anyone actually watching Hypnotic, an unrewarding slog being fished out of the garbage for Halloween no tricks or treats, just tripe."{{Cite news |last=Lee |first=Benjamin |date=2021-10-27 |title=Hypnotic review – schlocky Netflix thriller will send you to sleep |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/oct/27/hypnotic-thriller-netflix-kate-siegel-review |access-date=2024-01-20 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}} Christy Lemire, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave it 1/4 stars. She said the film "only occasionally rises to the potential of its wild premise, thanks mostly to a crazy-eyed, licking-his-chops performance from Jason O'Mara. He knows exactly what kind of material he's working with here. For the most part, though, Hypnotic is dopey, but never quite dopey enough."{{Cite web |last=Lemire |first=Christy |date=October 27, 2021 |title=Hypnotic movie review & film summary (2021) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hypnotic-movie-review-2021 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=RogerEbert.com |language=en}}

G. Allan Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle was more positive, saying the film was "the kind of made-for-cable-level movie where a pedestrian script... with the usual horror cliches is elevated by strong acting, no-nonsense direction and a couple of neat twists."{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=G. Allen |date=October 27, 2021 |title=Review: What happens when your hypnotherapist is a psycho? 'Hypnotic' says it's not good at all |url=https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/review-what-happens-when-your-hypnotherapist-is-a-psycho-hypnotic-says-its-not-good-at-all |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=San Francisco Chronicle |language=en-US}} Lena Wilson of The New York Times wrote, "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."{{Cite news |last=Wilson |first=Lena |date=October 27, 2021 |title='Hypnotic' Review: The Doctor Is Dangerous |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/movies/hypnotic-review.html |access-date=January 20, 2024 |work=The New York Times}}

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Category:2021 films

Category:2021 thriller films

Category:2020s English-language films

Category:American thriller films

Category:English-language thriller films

Category:Netflix original films

Category:Films about hypnosis

Category:2020s American films

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