L'omicidio nella mente

A number of reviews of this film mention "late night" and I think it's quite suitable for that kind of viewing. That's how and where I found it. I happened to be sick as a dog with a bad cough/cold, spending the overnight in a hotel not far from work due to a snow/ice storm that prevented me from driving home. Waking up in the middle of the night to calm my cough, I turned on the TV somewhere just after this film had recently started on a cable channel.

The story was off-balanced, weaving in and out of alternate realities, memories, hypnosis, and an overarching crime drama. It seemed a total mess, yet like a train wreck, it made me want to keep watching. Unfortunately, the ravages of my cold had me drifting off back to sleep before I could see where it was all leading.

That led me to wanting to find a re-broadcast or find it on home video. The best I could do in the early age of DVDs was to locate a VHS tape of it to finally see it all the way through. It made a lot more sense when I watched the whole thing, though it's still not what you'd call a great movie.

Still, something about it raises it above other 'bad' movies, so I've rated it a perhaps generous 7 out of 10 for its fascination factor.

Confused murder suspect cannot remember if she murdered her rich husband.

Against the better judgment of hard-bitten "throw the book at her and save tax-payers' money" type police department, smooth psychologist/hypnotist (Nigel Hawthorne) helps her to relive the night of the murder by means of regression into her past.

However, as she relives life with her husband she begins to notice that lots of details don't quite match her memories. What really happened?

This is NOT a fantastic film, I wouldn't pay money to see it in a cinema, for example. The depiction of hypnosis is bizarre enough to initially seem quite funny.

Once you get over that rather shaky plot device though, the various layers of reality brought up by the hypnosis are quite interesting in a "what is reality?" way. It reminded me the teensiest little bit of "Memento" and even though it was late at night I ignored the film's more pretentious angles and sat through the entire thing. Mainly to see why the memory discrepancies occurred and so on.

The lighting and photography are also quite nice.

If you remember the writer of this piece, it's the same guy who wrote and directed the agonizing garbage 'Jack Frost'. Much better this time around with this. I enjoyed it and was worth the time to see to it's finish. The plot's a bit confusing and there were evident holes but Mary-Louise's protrayal of her character bails'em out. Decent enough to earn my 7 rating.

A good cast... A good idea but turns out it is flawed as hypnosis is not allowed as evidence in courts. So many good actors and they are all acting so badly! So why did they all get attracted to this mess... And yes it has its good points such as lighting etc... But ultimately I wondered two things.... How could so much talent lead to such a bizarre mess? What is that accent that Nigel Hawthorne is putting on? He is/was a great actor and so what is that accent all about? It is impossible to identify? What was he trying to do? Maybe it is his subtle indication as if to say to us: 'I've got involved with a turkey so here's a crap accent to go with it!'

A thoroughly realistic interpretation of how Hypnosis can be really done. The plots (which I am not going to spoil by detailing here) are well worth watching the whole movie for. I saw this movie on cable one night by accident and bought it on VHS shortly afterwards as I was impressed by it. Any hypnosis fanatics out there MUST SEE this movie. Without a doubt it is the best around.