Hypnotic. – movie review
Premiering: April 11, 2003
Hypnotism was an amazement in 1772 when Franz Mesmer, an Austrian physician, first “mesmerized” patients for curative purposes. Today it’s the focus of a new psychological thriller starring Goran Visnjic as Dr. Michael Strother, a hypnotherapist with mind-reading talent.
Loosely based on Madison Smartt Bell’s Doctor Sleep, “Hypnotic” follows Strother’s hunt for a serial killer. Clues about the murderer, who attacks and renders one woman mute, are buried in the victim’s mind, and it’s Strother’s task to draw them out through hypnosis.
But how often does trauma really leave a victim speechless? “It’s very rare,” says Joanne Marrow, Ph.D., a professor at California State University at Sacramento. She suggests that most fully functioning adults with a strong support system can confide in a loved one. This is not to say that “Hypnotic” won’t be entertaining.
“There’s a lot of mystery around hypnotism,” says Marrow, “it’s a voodoo kind of thing.”–C.G.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Sussex Publishers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group