Middling length reviews of titles that fall under the psych-horror umbrella pertaining either to the characters in the film or the audience watching.
Middling length reviews of titles that fall under the psych-horror umbrella pertaining either to the characters in the film or the audience watching.
Middling reviews = those not short enough to be tiny reviews but that aren't as in-depth or focused as deep dives or reviews of entire franchises. Those on this page are real world which includes movies that either leave the characters in psychological suspense or the audience like cult movies and movies that tow the line between reality and fiction.
Netflix’s algorithm can more than tell from my watch history that I lean towards the macabre content. One of those suggestions, Incident in a Ghostland (2018) which is also titled Ghostland was consistently recommended and I’d consistently avoided it, not feeling interested based on the trailer alone. Crystal Reed plays Beth, the older version of one main character and I loved her in Teen Wolf but even the familiar face didn’t make me finally watch. Cut to a few weeks after the series of recommendations and a TikTok came up on my FYP that recommended horror movies with twists. I love twists and trying to guess the twist if I know there is one or being shocked by an unexpected twist, 2 of my favorite horror movie features. With the recommendation from a horror fan I figured why not with the expectation I’d scroll around social media if and when I lost full interest. While watching however I was shook that I couldn’t look away and rewound multiple times to make sure I didn’t miss clues, hints, or references in the detail-laden scenes. To watch Incident in a Ghostland free with ads now on Tubi TV click here.
Although Reed plays the older version of Beth the younger version is portrayed by Emilia Jones and the other main character is her sister, named Vera. Vera is another character with a younger and older version, portrayed by actresses Taylor Hickson and Anastasia Phillips respectively. Additionally their mother, portrayed by Mylène Farmer, is a critical character with less screen time. We meet the family of 3 on their journey traveling to their recently deceased distant relatives’ home that they’ve inherited and intend to move into. Their conversation in the car gives some insight into the dynamic of the family, Vera the more typical, well adjusted teen who had a boyfriend and friends she left behind to move and Beth a little weirder, an aspiring horror writer who love H.P. Lovecraft and was a loner. Their mother is French and despite them all knowing French Vera insists they speak English and tends to be mean to her sister Beth without a clear indication of why or a rational reason.
It becomes clear that Beth is a “scaredy cat” when she is petrified from a jump scare that signifies possible danger despite being a horror writer, which is very relatable. It’s also revealed through a hushed conversation that Beth has a habit of doing what Vera and their mother call “playing make believe” in her writing. Vera explains that she found a full interview written by Beth as if she is an adult writer being interviewed about an upcoming release like it was real. This plays a big role in the movie later on but for now the focus shifts to the creepy, inherited house. They find a doll emerging from behind a mirror like a messed-up jack in the box and horrifying dolls in varying stages of decay cluttering the house while examining the inside. Their aunt, who’s house they’ve inherited, is described as having been the quirky, weird, French woman who lived in the old house according to an earlier scene with a local Harbinger they interacted with on their journey.
A van arrives outside the house, the same one that Vera flipped off on their way to the house and a large man along with a hooded figure who has a knife are inside the van. The van seemingly following them to their isolated destination they are then attacked by the large man and the hooded figure with the knife but Vera is knocked out early in the scuffle. Beth, having been established as the scaredy cat of the family, completely freezes effectively becoming useless as the attack proceeds. Luckily their mom has a fight response rather than flight or freeze and despite taking some damage from the initial ambush she kicks major ass and ultimately wins the standoff. Beth, still frozen, is just able to look on but suddenly the adult Beth is waking up from a night terror about that event rather than it being the present situation at hand.
The older version of Beth, having survived the brutal attack, has become a successful horror writer who now goes by her full name, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is married in the present and has a child named Harlequin, even completed a big televised interview about her upcoming release. This interviewer nudges that the book is based on the incident that she and her family faced at her aunt’s house. She makes it clear in response however that she doesn’t like to talk about the event and it’s apparent that she has not attempted to deal with the trauma of the event yet. There’s virtually no time to dwell on that though because she gets a call from her sister, Vera, who is frantic and screaming for help on the other end. Her sister unfortunately did not come out of the attack as well as she did and rather than turning to art she still suffers from it as if she’s still living in it. Beth’s lack of reaction suggests this is a common, expected occurrence that she’s less than stoked to deal with, probably also worried for her mother’s safety when Vera is in that state of post-traumatic stress.
Without being quick to action Beth decides to go check on her sister and mom at the isolated house, slightly worried but not fully panicked yet. She’s unable to get into contact with her mom and get reassurance that this is an episode so resolves to head out there and see for herself. Once there Vera is still having visions of attack; they sustain and voluntarily lock herself in the basement and scenes of her being violently attacked by ghosts are shown. It isn’t clear if this is in her head and she’s suffering mentally or if she’s also suffering physically from supernatural attacks that are making Beth and their mother believe she’s not in real physical danger. Beth doesn’t even consider other sources of the visions or Vera’s physical symptoms but rather seems exhausted from dealing with a mentally ill sibling and an aging parent that is struggling to care for them any longer. Their mother tells Beth not to believe anything that Vera says or claims and suddenly Beth starts to get her ass kicked by the same supernatural, invisible entity that has been kicking Vera’s ass up until that point. Beth still doesn’t believe Vera and something doesn’t add up in light of the invisible entity attack. Vera starts unraveling and stating over and over that Beth needs to wake up and realize what has happened. This reveals the sad truth: Vera and Beth are still trapped in the basement.
The older versions of the 2 women are fantasies made up by Beth because their mother did die in the attack rather than triumphantly rising and defeating the attackers. The 2 women are still girls, trapped in the basement and even Beth’s family was imagined and conjured up from 2 paintings in the basement that Beth can see, one of a Harlequin and the other of a man. She’s disassociated and detached into a fictional reality because her own is too difficult to deal with and that seems more than fair. The reveal is shocking and good, the twist referenced and promised by the TikTok creator’s video but the reveal does happen rather early in the film which begged the question, “now what?,” for the remaining chunk of film time. As Beth learns or rather realizes and remembers the reality of their situation it is revealed that they’re trapped in the house with a very disturbed woman and a large man who seems to have the temperament and intelligence of a small child. The girls are being used as dolls, living dolls, to entertain the large man who is prone to throw fits and attack sudden noises and movements in violent rages.
Beth and Vera strategize and craft a way to escape, using the house's charms and their captor’s weaknesses against them to maneuver out of the house. Once they escape they run through the night and fortunately happen upon a police car on the highway that stops to help them. The captors however have managed to make it to the same spot around the same time and shoot the police officers, clearly disturbed enough to not care which makes them way more terrifying. They’re able to capture both girls again and upon this Beth escapes back into the reality she’s created in her mind but this time fights it to not abandon her sister in the real world. The murder of the police officers draws more police and this leads to a face off between the second set of officers and captors that ends in both being killed and both girls surviving their final battle with their captors.
When the movie began I didn’t like how little Beth reacted to the action around her but once the whole story comes together it makes sense why she wouldn't. Her mind is too stunned to even react to the situation unfolding to the extent that she builds her own world to escape to and she slips into freeze mode, unable to move or do anything to save her mom. Watching her mother die in front of her quite literally breaks her psyche and creates a world that seems like a flash forward for the viewer to experience alongside her. Her fantasy world draws on her current environment pulling details from her surroundings into her own narrative to make them digestible but distorted to her. It's heart wrenching to watch Vera struggle with both the actions of their captors and the reality of their circumstances after Beth’s situation is revealed while trying to pull Beth back to reality. While Beth is in her false reality she is actually able to make progress towards their escape, finding a weapon in the doll's hair pin and managing to find out how best to attack the "Fat Man" without fully realizing.
Even upon the girl's escape we cannot breathe a sigh of relief as the captor’s truck returns to not only recapture them but kill both officers, a completely unexpected escalation in action at that point. In that scene I liked the fake out of the truck coming down the road towards the sheriff's car, leading the viewer to believe that it's the truck coming for the girls, but in reality this is just a regular truck, further lowering their defenses for the real danger lurking closely behind them. Though the fact that they got recaptured pissed me off I understood why the plot might've needed just a dash more tension to feel complete upon their survival and the twist that they were still in captivity. Incident in a Ghostland is well worth the watch, in particular for fans of twists in reality or the gore-psychological subgenre combo. The big reveal is guessable past a certain point but I didn't guess the remaining action of the film which kept me on my toes waiting for a conclusion despite feeling that the big reveal had passed rather early in the plot. I'm glad that both girls survive in the end after all that they go through but was sad to find that the mother hadn’t actually survived the initial attack. In part because of that but also just general topics I wouldn’t say this will be a frequent watch due to the heavy nature of the subject matter.
Aerial shots of the Los Angeles city skyline transition into a shot of a quiet apartment building lined street then focuses in on one building with a vacancy sign out front, Asilo Del Mar. Inside the complex is bustling with diverse life, neighbors chatting in a courtyard and readily helping other neighbors as they pass by, laundry being hung on fences and hands being waved in ways not characteristic for 2019. The sunlit courtyard is surrounded by walkway balconies and apartment doors that lead into the individual units where various residents walk around happily. An open house is taking place at the start of the movie and the main character, Sarah portrayed by Nicole Byron Bloom, shows up to view the available unit. She’s recently moved to LA to pursue her dream of becoming a costume designer and taking temp work at a law firm to pay her bills while she attends classes at a nearby design school. She immediately notices the security system with eyes from above that buzz her in at the front door and meets Brian, portrayed by [], who’s checking his mail in the entrance lobby.
Brian calms her fears when he brushes off the security system as only being added a few years ago and that the street is much safer now. She follows signs in the complex that lead to the open unit where she discovers over 10 other people viewing the apartment. Upon seeing she’s late to the party she turns to leave deflated but Jerry, the community manager portrayed by Taylor Nichols, stops her and tells her that the apartment isn’t first come first served. She decides to take a look around and notices some odd marks on the wall 2 circular marks of wear about shoulder length apart but she wants to apply anyways. Jerry warns Sarah that the community is zero smoking and zero pets after she explains she came to the city to start her new life.
Back in her hotel room that night Sarah is on the phone with her dad and stepmom, her dad expressing that he doesn’t support her decision to move to LA on her own. This scene not only reveals the dynamics of her family and that her mother passed away as her dad tries to use that to guilt her into coming home but also that she has a cat and lied to Jerry. Her dad questions if she is capable of setting herself up to follow her dreams on her own and she flips the phone off, going to work at the temp agency the following day and meeting Lisa, portrayed by [], who is the opposite of Sarah. Lisa is still pursuing acting in LA while also working at the law firm and offers to introduce Sarah around, saying she knows all of the office gossip. Luckily or unluckily for Sarah she gets a call from Jerry that she’s been accepted into the unit and thus complex.
Sarah sneaks her cat disguised as boxes but is interrupted on the way by Brian who happens to be her down the hall neighbor that admits he put in a good word with Jerry to push her application to the top of the pile. Brian also invites Sarah to the community BBQ which actually becomes a welcome party for Sarah where she officially meets more of the Asilo Del Mar residents. She officially meets the elderly woman she helped when she arrived at the complex, the reason Brian cites for recommending her. This woman, Miss Stanhope portrayed by Susan Davis, requests Sarah call her Edie by the end of the night and introduces her to Esther, portrayed by Earnestine Phillips, a doctor and her husband, Oliver portrayed by [], a lawyer. Edie accidentally calls Sarah the wrong name when she introduces her, more clues to her declining state. She meets Janice, portrayed by Naomi Grossman, Jerry’s wife, and their daughter Natalie, while Janie and her lament that most places aren’t as connected as Asilo Del Mar is at that point in time.
The other main person that Sarah meets is Lester, portrayed by [], and is immediately weary of him because he lingers in shadowy pathways donning sunglasses that are missing 1 shade. He is reading a book that he offers to Sarah and says that it changed his life at the BBQ but she politely declines. She learns that Edie is taken care of by everyone in the community because she has no family or friends and everyone agrees that LA can be an especially lonely place. So far at this point in the movie things seem good but too good and there’s a general off feeling about the kindness being shown, feeling somewhat reciprocal or expectant rather than genuine and just because. Sarah feels like her luck has run out quickly however when she is unable to fill her antidepressant prescription and loud sounds from within the walls like pipes keep her up all night.
After progressively more intense sleep deprivation and hearing from Edie and Brian that they haven’t heard the same noises at night Sarah is already on edge when she receives a note on her door that is a printed pet policy from her lease with red marker writing, “SOME PEOPLE ARE ALLERGIC YOU SELFISH BITCH!,” with no indication of who could’ve put it there. She rushes outside and everyone appears mostly normal except Lester who stares from a distance with a blank expression. Beginning to snap, she turns to go and confront him but Brian stops her and interrupts to invite her to a dinner party that night that she hesitantly agrees to go to. Sarah goes to work and confides about her exhaustion to Lisa and they decide to get Thai food takeout and eat back at Sarah’s apartment. She doesn’t remember that she agreed to go to the dinner party but sees and hears it from Brian’s apartment when she gets to her floor. She warns Lisa and they try to rush by but Brian emerges and they have an awkward exchange as he insists she drop by later for dessert.
Inside her apartment Sarah realizes she forgot to apply to her program with everything going on and Lisa thinks her aversion to the apartment is crazy due to how nice it is. Sarah admits she might go home and feels that her dad could be right about everything, admitting she was a daddy’s girl up until she caught him cheating on her dying mother. Lisa encourages her to “sack up” or rather “pussy up” and keep at following her dreams, offering for the pair to get a place together and stand up for themselves. They exchange a motto that it’s their fucking lives and resolve to carry that energy going forward despite setbacks like what Sarah is facing. That night however Sarah is awoken by her fire alarm beeping and she discovers her cat, Giles, inside of it and feels it is Lester attacking her. Before she can make it out of the apartment though she’s stopped and the figure straps her to a chair, and this figure is actually Brian.
At first it feels like a Lifetime movie setup where a crazed man stalks and captures the person he’s obsessed with but Sarah gets out of the chair and escapes the apartment screaming for help. Outside she’s met with onlooking community members who seem not at all shocked to see her in that state or to see Brian chasing her. She runs into Esther’s arms, begging for help because Esther is asking what is wrong but quickly it becomes clear she is holding Sarah from running further so Brian can catch up and grab her. He teases her and drags her back into her apartment in a haze, hearing but not fully comprehending the conversation around her. Esther, Brian, and Jerry talk like Sarah isn’t there and Esther admits she feels that they rushed it with the “it” in question being the capturing of Sarah. Brian and Jerry argue that her conversation with Lisa and intentions to move made the sped up timeline necessary so as to not lose Sarah. This convo confirms that everyone is in cahoots and also that they have been watching Sarah as well as carrying out some sort of plan on her.
Brian stabs her with a syringe of meds that knocks her out and she wakes up on the wooden floor of an empty white walled room. The lower set of windows are covered by wood but windows from higher up let light in with a metal heavy-duty cell door on another wall. Jerry and Brian enter through the door and inform Sarah that they’ve basically excommunicated her from every facet of her life so that no one would suspect her missing. They also play a voicemail from Lisa for her that confirms they have said something to her to make her tell Sarah to never contact her again. Driving home that she has no one, they coerce Sarah to comply and place her hands on the wall, revealing the reason for the impressions on her own apartment wall. She is informed that a 2 light buzzer on the wall will indicate when she needs to assume the torturous stance against the wall and when she can rest. Her meals are served on a rolling tray passed through a latch in the door when she complies with her torture.
The first time she is left in the room in the torture stance she stares at the wall which is into the camera and resolves that she will get out of there and says, “My fucking life,” like Lisa and her had the night before. Her resolve withers as time goes on and she’s threatened on the first day with Lester’s own missing eye, concealed by the remaining shade of his sunglasses, a consequence of not complying. Using loud music from an overhead speaker, flashing strobe lights, and long intervals of leaning against the wall they break Sarah down until she’s collapsing on the floor when the buzzer goes off. Just as she’s breaking they bring in Edie to talk to her who reasons that they feel what she was doing with her life was crazy but rather the program is breaking what they call “bad conditioning” and that it must be fixed. She begs for help but Edie recommends that she give in and states she’ll be free if she does.
Sarah continues to endure the torture on the wall and collapses from exhaustion while the buzzer is still on, proceeding to ignore demands for her to go back to the wall. Brian and Jerry come in when she won’t and Jerry points a gun at her when she requests for them to just end things. They make her put her hands back on the wall and Brian hammers a nail into the center of each one, Esther revealing similar scars on her own palm when she comes in to nurse Sarah’s wounds later on. Sarah eventually loses it and thinks her dad is breaking in to rescue her and at his pleas she rips her hands from the wall only to discover it was in her head. Esther and Brian’s back and forth confirm that Brian intended to miss important parts of Sarah’s hand and Janice leads her to the “next phase” of her program.
Rather than being free after her ordeal it is only the beginning in true cult indoctrination fashion and she goes into a polygraph test interview with Larry and Brian. They ask her to describe her sexuality and sexual experiences as examples of questions shown, displaying the invasive and likely embarrassing nature of the conversations that will likely serve as collateral if she wants to leave or go to the cops. They inform her that one of their founding community principles is openness and that none of them keep secrets. She’s at some point led around the community by Larry who dialogues about the community’s tenets and how things operate there, adapting back into the community after her torture. The scenes she sees mirror the scenes shown at the start of the movie but this time she’s in the scenes, experiencing what seemed benign and innocent in the beginning of the movie. One of the main themes of the cult is combating what they feel is selfishness from modern society and are opting to have a community focused society.
Sarah is taught about Charles Ellerby, the author of the book the cult uses as guiding text, and she starts acclimating to the cult while reading the literature. While taking lessons from Larry and Janice she learns the 4 core principles are: selflessness, openness, acceptance, and security. She admits to him and Brian that she caught her dad cheating with her mom’s hospice nurse and he called her bluff when she threatened to tell her mother, something she didn’t follow through on. Her mother died believing her father was a saint and she carries guilt for that outcome, and despite trying to adapt to the tenets she consistently fails the question if she wants to be a part of the community. They recruit her to start contributing to the community and make a point that it is essential for everyone to contribute to the greater good of the group.
One might ask why she wouldn’t want to be part of the torturous community but it is quite clear in the montages of her time as part of it. On paper the community sounds utopian but in reality their version of selflessness is doing unethical things to protect the group, believing no secrets can exist because they “sow discord” and slapping members when they are perceived to have broken the core tenets, what Ellerby considered correcting “an error” that is then forgiven post-slap. During this indoctrination she is sleeping in the torture room on a mattress with blankets, gaining more creature comforts as she continues onward in the program. Due to the group believing that security is key they have placed cameras in every apartment and watch everyone, thinking people will behave better if they think they’re watched on some Big Brother type stuff.
Sarah is brought into the camera office to watch the feeds alongside Brian and other rotating community members and on those feeds they witness Edie struggling. Edie’s declining state has made her not as valuable to the community and they decide it’s time for her to die so that a new member can join. Sarah is obviously upset and confused at the callous nature of the situation but Edie is accepting, Brian citing her deep involvement with the community that included recruitment and the welcome wagon at some points. They place a bag over her head and pump gas into it until she suffocates seemingly peacefully while holding Sarah’s hand, squeezing once more before she’s gone.
Brian then reveals that the community saved him when Sarah questions the circumstances and Edie’s passing. He says that after getting back from Iraq he felt hopeless until he found the community around 9 years ago. He reasons that the community will go to any length to make her happy if she accepts it and at her next polygraph she passes the final question that she does want to join the community. She’s blindfolded and brought out to the courtyard where the other adult community members are waiting for her to celebrate and welcome her as a full member. Before the celebration commences however there’s the run of the mill cult mutilation ritual to symbolize everlasting devotion via a brand right behind her ear. Larry welcomes her after this and she thanks him, cockily saying he knew she’d thank him and referencing an initial conversation they had once she awoke in captivity.
The group enjoys brand cult symbol cake and chat until Larry announces they’ve found a role in the community for Sarah. She’s going to be taking Lester’s wife’s place, lamenting the loss of her and the impact it had on the community, and present Sarah to him in front of the group. Larry explains that her commitment to Edie made her a great match for Lester and that both of their commitment to the tenants would make them good parents. Earlier Sarah witnessed the school room for the children who watched Ellerby videos under Lester’s watch in desk rows. Sarah is less than pleased and very trepidatious about the scenario, hesitating to follow Lester to their apartment. He explains that her apartment was never actually her apartment and it must remain empty for new recruits, beginning to show Sarah and the audience the tactics that the cult utilizes to manipulate people.
Just as she’s going to follow Lester into the bedroom Larry barges in and tells them they have an immediate problem which turns out to be Sarah’s dad at the community. She tells him to come back later and in the interim the community moves her things back into the apartment to stage it like she has been there the whole time. They remind her of the security principle and threaten that she can either get rid of her dad so he doesn’t return or they’ll kill him to eliminate the threat he could pose to them. Her dad is let up when things are in place and they have an emotional back and forth that almost breaks Sarah out of the mental prison she’s in until she sees Brian coming out from the other room with a gun, aiming at her father’s back as they embrace.
Sarah’s dad tries to apologize but she goes scorched earth to save his life and is able to get him to leave for good. Back inside their apartment Lester reveals he’s made a space for her sewing machine and costume materials in the walk-in closet and she shows she’s willing to make everything work once he reveals he’s not a creep at all. Lester admits he also struggled with being there despite being a very loyal member who carried out the group’s bidding until that point. Quickly another vacancy is listed and the apartment that Sarah formerly occupied goes through the process but this time Sarah sees behind the curtain. They are specifically recruiting Lisa after they realize her connection to Sarah and identify her as a good mark. A montage reveals how similar her experience at the community is to Sarah’s, showing that nothing was spontaneous or unplanned or unaccounted for.
Lisa at one point says she thought Sarah would leave after her freak out and Larry asks if Sarah is looking forward to having her friend back as they watch from the security feeds. Rather than show the torture outside the room is shown as Lisa can be heard screaming inside, facing the same torture that Sarah did. Lisa bites Brian in the ear, already more of a struggle to contain than Sarah had been and Larry admits that Sarah had been right to try and deter them because Lisa was stronger than her. They send Sarah in similarly to how they sent Edie in to confront Sarah and Lisa actually gets Sarah to start to break instead. Sarah argues that Lisa is the brainwashed one and not her because she’s still pursuing acting in LA at 38 as an office assistant but Lisa quickly comes back and quashes Sarah’s upper hand in the convo.
Lisa tries to get out and almost does but is stopped by Larry who instructs Sarah to hammer a needle in Lisa’s ear as he holds her down, saying she needs to finish what she started. Lisa pleads that it’s Sarah’s life to her and this breaks the spell over her, causing her to stab Larry in the neck with the instrument rather than aid him in hurting Lisa. They begin to walk out of the hallway towards the stairs as they reconnect and fuck-face Larry shoots Lisa through the head from behind, killing her. Sarah jumps into action and stabs Larry repeatedly as she screams “fuck you” to him then takes the keys and door buzzer from his pockets. She sees he also has the brand behind his ear, implying he too went through the same torture as she takes his gun too. Everyone is coming out of their apartments having heard some commotion in the relatively quiet complex. Sarah holds the gun out to ward them off as they begin to close in on her and she screams that they are all free to go because she killed their captor Larry.
Janice runs at her with a knife having discovered Larry’s death and Sarah fires a warning shot but Brian informs her that Larry didn’t start Asilo Del Mar. He explains to her that they have no central leader and that Larry was trained by Ellerby to create something that sustains leaderlessness. The next leader seems to be Brian based on this interaction and she threatens to shoot him if he doesn’t let her leave. He calls her bluff but not repeating the mistakes of her past she shoots him rather quickly after this and makes a break for the door. Lester takes the gun from her when she’s held back by another community member and she tells him to shoot her and just end it.
Lester shoots towards the camera with the action behind the shot to conceal who’s shot momentarily and it’s revealed that he’s shot the community member and spared Sarah. He rushes forward and pushes her out of the front door and shuts it while holding off the other cult members wanting to stop Sarah. Lester holds the gun under his chin as Sarah looks back in horror while the door shuts. Once the door shuts through the glass windows shadows are seen in a scuffle and then a gunshot rings out as blood splatters against the door. Sarah escapes with the door buzzer as the cult members angrily pound on it from the other side. Covered in Lisa and Larry’s blood Sarah runs down the street in a full sprint momentarily. The street is still silent however so she stops and turns to see if anyone is chasing her but the area is clear of signs of life.
The darkened car lined street is a relief to her until she notices other buildings have similar security cameras to the community then sees one has the same logo on their community sign. She thinks back to asking Brian in the security office who was watching them and how he explained someone was always watching just as alarms began blaring from the surrounding buildings. The alarms trigger one by one down the street, lining both sides as far as can be seen into the distance. The red alarm lights casting a glow on Sarah’s blood covered face she chuckles and balls her fists, the camera moving around her to then show behind her. She takes off running down the center of the street as the alarms rage on either side of her and into the distance. This cuts to credits without more details about their community, the other communities, or the extent of power the broader cult actually has.
1BR isn't perfect but it does provide an interesting story that is told from multiple perspectives at different points in time throughout Sarah's indoctrination. I like that the indoctrination is shown before going into the tactics used, it made them feel more impactful as a viewer that I too had been tricked by their methods. The speakers at night to keep her up that the other neighbors claim to never hear is one example of mind tricks that always sticks out to me and struck me. So often we brush off noises as our own paranoia or eccentricities, in particular if that individual is a woman that lives alone like Sarah is when she moves into Aldis Del Mar. Sarah is highly susceptible like many cult members are when brought in, Larry even admitting that part of the key to success is picking the right candidate. It isn't explicitly said that the right candidate is someone struggling or at rock bottom in life feeling lost but the statements from other group members coupled with Sarah and Lisa's experiences match that implicitly expressed detail.
I think it is clever to show the community from Sarah's perspective as well as from the internal perspective of her helping out to show the contrast in rose colored glasses benefit of the doubt version of the community and the cult that it is revealed to be. The nonchalance is also extremely unsettling, another day at work vibes towards Sarah as they taze then restrain and torture her, feeling that her compliance is childish and misguided rather than justified based on her circumstances. Despite all that happens to her she still engages in the tactics and brings Lisa into the fold which also feels important to include because it is easy to condemn the other characters without really examining the true horror of the cult. I like the contrasting imagery and the use of Lisa and Sarah as 2 very different personalities responding to the same cult tactics and indoctrination and wanting more of that. The cult itself is a self-sustaining beast at the point we join which doesn't absolve the members but does make one ask the chicken and the egg question of who is really to blame, the cult or the cult members who keep the cult alive, growing, and evolving.
Back in 2019 the isolation and impacts of them on society due to COVID-19 felt like sci-fi fiction of tinfoil hat wearing forum dwellers. Now however the plot of 1BR doesn't feel niche at all and more and more cult tactics have become normalized and streamlined to capture entire voting populations in chokeholds they can't escape. This will always be a film I wish I could've watched prior to the pandemic to view it with that mindset rather than my current one that people are so starved for community something as insidious as Aldis Del Mar like communities could become widespread without much notice being paid.
Try as I might, despite my best efforts to watch a holiday themed horror movie this week I just couldn’t do it. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas this year and frankly after watching all three Black Christmas movies I needed a break. So, instead of a holiday movie this week I watched Hypnotic 2021, a Netflix original starring Kate Siegel as the protagonist and Jason O’Mara as the antagonist respectively.
From the opening scene I assumed the therapist, Dr. Collin Meade (O’mara) bared resemblance to a Criminal Minds episode where the serial killer uses his patients' phobias to kill them. A woman is crushed in an elevator and I have to assume that he doesn’t have Saw level abilities to make her wander into a mechanically altered elevator that crushes her without the news getting a hold of the story. I did however find it interesting to see what someone might experience inside of their head when having a phobia, like claustrophobia, come into play.
We are introduced to the main character Jenn Tompson (Siegel) as she arrives at a friend’s get-together. We are informed through dialogue that she is struggling, hints like her bringing a dead plant because she drank the bottle of wine she meant to bring are made apparent. My problem with this throughout the movie is that she is a really put together appearing woman for someone struggling, unemployed, and in need of a life changing therapist. Her hair is done, her clothes are cute despite the costume designers best efforts to make Kate Siegel look frumpy in a knit sweater.
Also in this scenario we meet the therapist himself, Meade, who shouldn’t even be at this party considering he is treating Jenn’s close friend, Gina Kellmen, played by Lucie Guest. Already I know he is no good based on this fact alone and his general lack of boundaries having the audacity to give Jenn a card in the first place knowing the association between his patient Gina and Jenn. We also learn that Jenn has an ex-boyfriend Brian Rawley, played by Jaime M. Callica, whom she has a sorted past with but clearly still cares about.
Of course Jenn ends up going to see Meade for therapy and goes under hypnosis. We as the viewer are not privy to what happens in this session, as neither Jenn is, she goes under and then wakes up and that’s it. We do however learn that within three months of that session she has secured a good job and per her therapist's urging is going to have dinner with Brian to discuss their issues surrounding the death of their newborn son years before. As she is leaving to get groceries for said dinner she gets a call from an unknown number, she answers and then blacks out only to come to with Brian choking in her bathroom.
Despite me thinking he would for sure be the first murder victim of Meade in Jenn’s life he is alive on a ventilator. Jenn blames herself only to piece together with memories and clues that she in fact bought sesame oil, Brian’s allergy, and put it in the salad for him during the blackout. In a surprising twist Jenn doesn’t just ignore this but instead starts to investigate hypnosis and crimes committed under hypnosis.
The discovery that you can in fact be hypnotized and then be made to carry out crimes she compiles evidence and takes it to an officer who previously investigated Meade for this very crime, Detective Wade Rollins, played by Dulé Hill. She’s also roped her friend Gina, the one who introduced her to and recommended Meade, into this investigation despite Gina not believing her at first. Rollings is sympathetic but can’t do much at the moment as he has tried in the past and the police bureau uses hypnosis in crime investigations and doesn’t believe him about Meade. This is annoying but ACAB so it makes sense. As they leave Gina decides to mention that despite his protests before Meade has also used hypnosis on her, and at this moment I know that she will either be killed or try to kill Jenn.
Before that happens however Jenn tries to catch Meade by recording him during one of their sessions. She’s not great at deceiving him and he has been stalking her anyways and is aware that she went to talk to the police with Gina. He lets her record it anyways and just uses the time to interrogate her about her mistrust around him. He creepily calls her “my love” which will become important later and I will bitch about that. As predicted he calls Gina and puts her under hypnosis to kill her, my problem with this is why the hell would she continue talking to him when she heard it’s him on the phone knowing damn well he uses death mind control on people? Also, she starts seeing a spider on her while driving with her husband but like she doesn’t have to crash or accelerate into traffic, she could’ve just pulled over and gotten out. Either way, she and her husband die in the crash.
There’s some cat and mouse between Rollins and Meade, with Rollins being far too trusting in his presence even drinking his alcohol. It’s apparent that Meade only uses hypnosis on certain patients but we still aren’t privy to why that is at this point in time. I can’t believe that he’s letting Meade not only know he’s onto him but also calling him out on his turf, is this a man thing? Anyways, Rollins goes and tells Jenn his findings and warns her and then leaves only for Meade to show up moments later and use force like power to stop her dead in her tracks. Rollins gets attacked in his apartment by another one of Meade’s patients under hypnotic mind control, she’s somehow good at fighting and practically kicks Detective Rollins’ ass. He ends up in the hospital which I appreciated because I like his character and it annoys the hell out of me when they kill a character too soon and make the villain seem invincible only for him to be easily thwarted later.
Jenn ends up going to see another therapist to talk about the hypnosis and maybe be hypnotized again and fuck that. I would never be able to trust another therapist again after this bullshit. Alas, this sweet lady puts her into a hypnotic state where she starts choking in the real world but in her subconscious she has visions of a house and a bracelet with the date of March 6th on it being given to her by Meade himself. Once she breaks out of this state to a horrified therapist they determine that that darn Meade has placed stop gaps in her subconscious so she can’t be hypnotized and released from his bullshit by anyone else. They do decide however to place their own suggestions in her subconscious as a defense against Meade. Now right here I thought, damn that’s genius, I wonder how this will play out. Well, not as intelligently as I assumed.
Like every gung-ho horror movie idiot, Jenn goes to the place from her dreams alone, despite learning that it’s Meade’s dead mentor’s home, in the middle of nowhere. Before she leaves she updates the recovering Rollins, cause he can’t catch some peace. This freaks him out but he stays his ass in the hospital bed where it belongs. Unfortunately, he gets a call shortly after that Meade is actually the son of the “mentor” who had ties to MKUltra and implanted false memories into patients. Xavier Sullivan, the mentor, refused to retire like most white men with ideas of grandeur. When Jenn gets there we are shown that uh-oh, Meade is actually Jamie Sullivan, the creepy son of creepy Xavier. I’ll admit some of these events might have occurred out of the order I’ve described them but it’s all the same in this scenario.
In the face off between Jenn and Meade/Jamie we learn that he has been trying to recreate his wife and their happy moments with lookalikes and that Jenn has made it the furthest up in here. He has her hypnotized to sit still as he describes his creepy agenda. In a cliché he gets angry when he’s called insane. This bothers me because I think we can all agree that you can be insane and still be aware of being insane especially if you’re a trained therapist who has knowledge of what is psychologically “normal” and “abnormal”. Some more stuff happens and then we get to the point where Rollins is there trying to find and shoot Meade and Jenn is able to break out of the hypnosis kind of.
Side note, during the altercation between Meade and Rollins Meade uses a tire iron to hit Rollins and I want to know why everyone in horror movies just has tire irons laying around, I don’t think I’ve owned one in my life. Jenn gets the gun and shoots a fighting Rollins and Meade and thinks she has shot Meade and killed him waking up in the arms of Rollins on the couch. He calls her “my love” though and she instantly knows based on the stop gap placed by the good therapist that she’s under hypnosis. This pissed me off. Why the hell weren’t there far more stop gaps in place, was it a time issue, was it a fear it wouldn’t work?
My thinking is that Jenn and the viewer both know he’s used words such as ‘stop’ and ‘sleep’ so couldn’t they have just added those to the counter measures to stop some of this extra shit from happening? It seems like a pretty base level insurance policy to stay protected in face of an odd situation that is just missed. Regardless, she gets free, kills Meade, and Rollins survives. Like every disgruntled woman she cuts bangs in the flash forward. She has a great job and waits dutifully by the side of Brian for him to wake up from whatever is up with him.
Was it a great movie, no, was it a nice break from Christmas horror, yes. I didn’t have to think much, the plot, while predictable, also had satisfying elements. Not particularly scary other than the notion that someone could fuck up your whole life because they put you under hypnosis. I assume that the level to which he’s able to control her isn’t possible but I honestly don’t want to know if it is because the idea of people walking around being mind controlled in real life is actually terrifying. I left this viewing never wanting to be put under hypnosis.