I’d almost forgotten about Alejandro Amenábar. Having come to prominence with 1997’s Abre Los Ojos AKA Open Your Eyes, a psychological drama with a bizarre sci-fi twist (which later spawned an inferior remake in the Tom Cruise/Cameron Crowe movie Vanilla Sky), the Spanish director really broke big with 2001’s The Others. Ghost stories with an unexpected third act revelation were very much in vogue at the time thanks to the massive success of The Sixth Sense two years earlier, and Amenábar arguably got that format near perfect with clear debt to Val Lewton, although opinion seems divided on whether Nicole Kidman’s showy central performance was a benefit or a hindrance (personally I lean more toward the latter). However, whilst M Night Shyamalan proceeded to run his slow-burn big-twist format into the ground with a succession of progressively dumber movies which pretty much pissed away all the good will he’d earned on The Sixth Sense, Amenábar did not follow suit, returning to Spain and largely disappearing from mainstream scrutiny. But now he’s back in the USA with Regression, bringing with him two big name lead actors in modern horror renaissance man Ethan Hawke and child stardom survivor Emma Watson, and an intriguing subject matter that has largely remained unexplored on the big screen to date: the Satanic Panic that swept America in the 1980s and into the early 90s.
The year is 1990. Hawke is small town detective Bruce Kenner (yes, I too did a double take), whose sleepy routine is disrupted when devoutly religious 17 year old Angela Gray (Watson) accuses her father of raping her. Her father (David Dencik), seemingly every bit as traumatised as his daughter, does not deny the charges, but bizarrely professes to have no memory of the incident. Hawke calls on the services of local university psychology professor Kenneth Raines (David Thewlis, whose casting alongside Watson seems to be the main thing Harry Potter fans are freaking out over), at whose suggestion they use regressive hypnotherapy to unlock the accused’s repressed memories. What they learn from this process, in conjunction with Angela’s shocking testimony, suggests something much larger and even more sinister than a solitary case of child abuse, pointing toward a problem widely reported to be sweeping the nation: the rise of secret sects of devil worshippers in modern day America.
Of course, as soon as we mention Satanism in mainstream movies, our minds immediately flit toward Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, The Exorcist, or perhaps more modern examples like The Last Exorcism and its sequel. Regression, however, isn’t quite the same kettle of fish. An opening title card informs us the film is based on true events, although as I’m by no means the most well-read person on this subject I don’t know whether it recounts any one specific real life case. Still, from my limited knowledge of the subject, Regression would seem to be the most grounded and true to life feature film yet made on the subject of Satanic ritual abuse. On top of which, it’s an interesting, largely compelling variation on the paranormal investigation format that has been prominent in mainstream horror of late.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this also makes it a somewhat difficult film to properly discuss without getting into MAJOR spoilers. So if you’d rather go in cold – which I do recommend – then don’t read beyond the picture below. If you’re leaving us here, just know that, while by no means an unmissable masterpiece, Regression is well worth your time and money. So, hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon, madam.
Okay, so for those who weren’t paying attention, 1) shame on you, 2) SPOILERS AHEAD…
Putting the question of historical accuracy to one side for now, Regression winds up a fascinating subversion of that dark magical mystery set-up that we’re all so familiar with in genre cinema today. Indeed, Ethan Hawke’s gone through the motions on that format more than once now, most notably with Sinister. It always goes the same way: level-headed, down to earth person comes into contact with strange phenomena, and bit by bit their scepticism is tested until at last they realise beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts/demons/whatever are completely real, leading to some kind of spectacular showdown which sees the worlds collide. What sets Regression apart is that Hawke’s policeman starts out more or less sceptical, comes to suspect the worst, soon believes that the servants of Lucifer really are after him – but then, by the final act, comes to the earth-shattering realisation that… well… he was right to be a sceptic. Because it’s all bollocks. 100% pure bollocks with no foundation in truth whatsoever. The reason no one has ever found any proof of Satanic ritual abuse is that it never bloody happened. And what’s more, the allegedly scientific method of regressive hypnotherapy is completely unreliable too.
Let’s face it – this isn’t the kind of conclusion we’re used to seeing in the movies. When a film has gone to the time and effort of showing us Satanic rituals, as Regression does more than once, we expect there to be some truth to what we’ve been shown – even if, as here, they’re in the form of dream sequences. We also implicitly trust our main protagonists to be reliable and level-headed; the idea that they are themselves leaping to conclusions based on their own media-induced fantasies rarely crosses our mind. The key thing in Regression is that it emphasises how seriously the Satanic panic was taken by middle America. Interestingly, the film doesn’t dwell at all on some of the aspects of Satanic panic that many of us will be most familiar with, such as fears of messages from Beelzebub in heavy metal records and horror movies; about the only times that’s ever touched on are brief references to Goth kids in town. But we are shown how heavily the theme was explored in TV news and books, with Watson’s shrewd manipulator Angela suspected to have got her ideas from a trashy, alleged non-fiction bestseller of the time.
It’s a far cry from “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist;” seems fairer to say his greatest trick was convincing the world he was everywhere. The film may be a little heavy-handed in its demonstration of how easily we wind up seeing what we expect to see in the face of widespread anxiety, but this remains a worthy message that we don’t often get from mainstream films which oftentimes seem more interested in promoting belief in baseless conspiracy theories. And, of course, it’s no great stretch to assume Regression is intended as a lesson and a warning about paranoia and scare tactics in general. Much as Arthur Miller used the Salem witch trials as an allegory for McCarthyism in The Crucible, might Alejandro Amenábar be using the Satanic Panic to explore similar contemporary fears? I’ll leave it to the reader to judge what those fears might be, but it probably needn’t be that specific. Scapegoating and fear-mongering has always been a game played by politicians, the media and the church, and whoever or whatever we’re meant to be afraid of now, you can bet your life there’ll be someone or something else we’ll be told to be afraid of in years to come.
Still, positive message aside, is Regression necessarily much to write home about? Well, as you’d expect from a mainstream production it’s all very well shot and edited, and the performances are all of a good standard (no career bests, but no one shames themselves either, even with Watson’s slightly shakey American accent). Again, anyone hoping for another great Satanic horror movie will be disappointed, as this is for the most part a quiet police procedural with the odd diabolical flourish. Hawke’s dream sequences are well realised and atmospheric; they’re not the most horrifying sequences of their type we’ve ever seen, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be. I rather think the whole point of Regression is that it takes sensational subject matter – or rather, the subject of sensationalism – and does not treat it in a sensational way. And in this, it is a welcome breath of fresh air.
Regression is out now in the UK and Ireland from Entertainment Film Distributors.