WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Hypnotic, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix’s Hypnotic, it’s clear the film wants to deceive viewers early on regarding the abilities and overall plan of the sinister psychiatrist, Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara). He uses hypnosis to mind-control Jenn (Kate Siegel), implanting false dreams and memories, so even she’s confused as the line of fiction and reality become blurred. However, as his scheme plays out, the movie has a massive flaw in the execution of its main psychedelic twists.
Now, they aren’t bad on paper, but the twists don’t resonate as well as they should due to them being rushed and lacking emotional connections. The first comes when Jenn realizes after a session that she’s dreaming about sleeping with Meade. She then Googles his background and finds out his past, which involves more women like her ending up dead.
It’s a bombshell in the first act that negates the rest of Hypnotic, as audiences already know Meade’s evil. It also deflates the entire arc of Detective Rollins and it’s strange that there’s so much evidence surrounding Meade’s murder victims online, with Jenn now coming to him with her issue. The fact that they both know so much about the deaths, yet nothing ever happened to Meade in the past just feels off.
Meade even admits he’s a fiend to Jenn right after, leaving her with the recording of her attempt to expose his powers, which takes away the mystery from Hypnotic. It continues to mount evidence only for the cops to magically ignore him. Had he been hypnotizing cops to prevent them from working cases together or previous questionings, or had he used his real identity, Jack Sullivan, to commit the killings, that could have made the twist pop more. As it stands, it comes too early and with no cryptic disguise, it diminishes his cerebral and intimidating nature.
Secondly, the finale’s twist bombs just as hard when Rollins saves Jenn at the Sullivan forest home. A shootout occurs, with Jenn pulling the trigger as both men scramble. Seeing as the mind-control has her woozy, it’s a lucky shot that takes Meade down, leaving Rollins comforting her on the couch. But he immediately calls her “my love,” telling her she’ll be safe. She realizes this is really Meade placing an illusion in her mind, as he used this phrase before. Thus, she quickly knocks him out since a counter-trigger was placed in her mind for this particular phrase from another therapist.
The thing is, while it is a cool bit of misdirection, the deception only lasts a few seconds. Had Rollins taken her home or the reveal occurred on the drive, it’d have created room to breathe, allowing tension and suspense to build over clues dropped in a slow burn. Instead, it’s hurried as she quickly defragments her mind, rushes to grab Rollins’ gun and kills the villain. It’s a waste of a clever twist and compounds how much Hypnotic transforms the best parts of an already-weak script into trivial, throwaway developments.
See the big twists get botched in Hypnotic, now streaming on Netflix.
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