1997’s Hysteria is the kind of movie which I feel justifies my purchases of cheap discs at places like Hamilton Books. If it hadn’t been for seeing this bluray in one of their monthly drops, I like would never have been aware of this title. And this is a deeply weird, thought-provoking film I’m glad I didn’t miss out on.
I was intrigued mostly because this is the last starring role of Patrick McGoohan. Similar to his role in Cronenberg’s Scanners, he is a scientist with unorthodox methods, running a secret clinic out of a remote location. In this case, it is a creepy, gothic mansion.
Also like that Cronenberg film, the phenomenon being studied here appears to be along the lines of telepathy. The inmates of this asylum share a hive mind, courtesy of a chip McGoohan has surgically implanted in each of them, behind the left ear. The good doctor has even chipped himself, all the better to fully understand his patients.
The inmates are largely the usual assortment from central casting, with a few notable exceptions. Amanda Plummer steals the show as a master manipulator, maintaining a firm control over the others despite being confined to a wheelchair. Joanne Vannicola plays a physically intense young woman who talks in rhyming verse. There’s one guy I couldn’t identify from the IMDB listing who acts and talks like he’s a character from a 90’s side-by-side fighter video game.
Our protagonist is Michael Maloney, playing a psychiatrist who is dismayed at the closure of the mental hospital where he works. As patients are essentially tossed into the street, he laments mental health services only remaining available to the wealthy. I am deeply saddened by how that situation has only become worse in the quarter century since this movie was released.
Maloney’s favorite patient is played by Emmanuelle Vaugier. The exact nature of her mental illness is never revealed, but it apparently has something to do with carnal desires triggering homicidal ones. Not sure if that issue has been identified as a real psychological problem, but I doubt this is often the diagnosis. This is more like the kind of issue people have in “Skinemax”-type movies like Color of Night.
And this is a very horny movie. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as even softcore porn, though I suspect this unrated film would likely receive a NC-17. What sex is in it isn’t strong, so much as it is a bit weird, as a chipped Maloney and Vaugier do the horizontal mambo and everybody in the hive mind gets aroused, with many of them then getting frisky. Once again, this seems reminiscent of a Cronenberg film.
Maloney has taken her to McGoohan’s asylum because there apparently aren’t any other facilities available. Something I had trouble suspending my disbelief over is there were no other options available for Vaugier except a creepy-ass mansion run by a doctor who is conducting mysterious experiments there.
If there’s one thing that made me cut the film enough slack to accept this, it is the similar look and vibe it has to such independent horror movies as Hellraiser. I was very surprised it was made in 1997, as every aspect of it would lead me to believe it was made a decade earlier. I know most people wouldn’t give a movie more leeway than others just because it had a small budget, was independently produced or was from a particular era, but I like to think I grade on a curve.
Something else I had to overlook is the nature of the collective consciousness. The specifics of it are left vague, but it appears individuals still have some amount of control over themselves. And yet, when Maloney knees one of the group in the crotch, the others all bend over as well (in one of the film’s few moments of intentional humor). But why isn’t Maloney also impacted? In an earlier scene, he feels a punch he landed on another guy.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a highly intellectual work, but it does have some interesting ideas about identity. I was also surprised by some directions the story takes towards the end. There were some elements of it I could foresee, but a couple of other aspects completely blindsided me.
Hysteria is a pleasant surprise, and I’m interested in exploring the rest of director Rene Daalder’s brief oeuvre. It has been a while since I have seen something that felt subversive, maybe even a bit transgressive, and I liked how it cleared out some cobwebs from my mind.
Dir: Rene Daalder
Starring Patrick McGoohan, Amanda Plummer, Michael Maloney
Watched on Cult Epics blu-ray