‘Once you get the clarity of your soul, you won’t need the conviction of mind’
Who is the director and actors in the movie Regression 2015?
Regression(2015) is a psychological thriller mystery film written and directed by Alejandro Amenabar. The leading roles are played by Emma Watson, Ethan Hawke etc.
Regression 2015 plot Explained:
1990, Minnesota:
John is an auto mechanic, and is called in to a police station to validate a statement given by his daughter who is living in a church right now. Reverend Beaumont provides them with a statement paper signed by his daughter. Detective Bruce records some statements where he says Angela never lies but part of him says it’s impossible whatever she is claiming that we don’t know yet.
Bruce tells him to cut the shit and wants to know the reason for her avoidance. Then John admits his fault but he doesn’t remember doing it. Bruce goes to his mom’s house with a police team. His mom regrets what he has done. When Bruce checks on Angela’s room, George comes up and hinders him from doing it without a warrant. On the way back, George expresses his surprise for John, molesting his daughter.
Next day, Cleveland meets Professor Raines who tells him John is trying to cooperate since he is not hiring a lawyer. John is an extremist who can do awful things but can’t live with that.
‘Regressive hypnosis has made great progress, gentleman.’
John told Angela not to tell anyone. He touches her and forces her to have sex with him. Bruce repeats those words which her own daughter wrote about him. Keeping a pendulum in front of him, they keep repeating the words and he goes back to the flashback. He actually didn’t rape her, he filmed it when George was raping her tying her with a black rope. It’s kind of a satanic ritual. Bruce confronts George, on a tricky note, George gets caught. He is sent to jail and Katie is his lawyer. She is working on bailing him and Bruce wants permission to talk with Angela for her identification.
The Reverend says she is always sad here and he knew it was her father. Angela writes something on a note. Angela wrote all the things they did to her when they summoned the devil and she identifies George as the rapist. The Reverend confronts John who branded her daughter with an upside down cross. He realises John was to his church to desecrate that, not to get over his wife’s death.
The whole town is now on the topic of Satanism. Cleveland tells about a channel where a girl shows a book named ‘In Satan’s Name’. This book is converting people into doing abusive rituals. Police department orders everyone to get a copy and read it. One of the officers updates them with the trace of Roy, John’s son who lives in Pittsburgh. Raines and Bruce do their regression hypnosis with him and find six people wearing black hoodies to scare him in his childhood. They assume there was his Grandma, Rose.
Police search the whole house and Rose slaps Bruce when he asks her about the photos. George attends a lie detector test and meanwhile Bruce gets the FBI reports about satanic cults. Bruce was right, the FBI was following them for several years. Ever since the book was published. There are rituals happening everywhere but with no proof. If they don’t be able to find the proof, George will be released. Bruce gets excited saying we can’t release a man who is part of a satanic cult. Meanwhile, Angela shows her sign, branded on her stomach and confirms the devil will kill her and Bruce.
Bruce wakes up in the middle of the night having several people around him wearing black robes and a naked woman forcing him to have sex with her. But thank god! It was just a bad dream. Next Bruce tells John to give him names of those who were involved with this crime instead of drawing devilish pictures. Rose, the grandma talks with Angela and asks her why she made the Reverend tell her about the incident when she knew she was involved with. It was just because she doesn’t remember anything. In her home, she confronts the devil and recalls the argument between John and his wife when they killed a baby for ritual. She jumps off the window frighteningly and dies.
Bruce and Angela are now pretty close together. Roy comes to see his grandma to console her. Grandma remembers everything but Roy doesn’t acknowledge it. Reverend gives a rosary to Bruce and Raines gets pissed off seeing him taking it but at the same time, Bruce finds a man wearing black hoodie. It is one of their tactics. They blend in with people on the street and start staring at someone. Just in that moment, he gets a call and no one responds. We see that caller coming out from a booth who is none other than Angela!!
‘Sometimes they’d call in the middle of the night and hang up. It’s like an invitation to be one of us.’
That night Bruce again has a nightmare of killing a baby and making him drink blood. Wherever he is going, he is finding people staring at him. Meanwhile, George gets released and Bruce gets flared up seeing him outside of custody. He passed the polygraph twice. Angela’s medical report says her mark is superficial, not done by George. It’s typical for trauma victims to want to strengthen their testimony by adding little details.
Bruce takes the first tape, listens to it carefully and confronts John about what else he was gonna say that day. He says Ray is a sodomite, being a sodomite is a sin. These are the sins people learn from some pervert. He thinks he is that pervert and that’s why he is taking the blame of molesting his child on his shoulder for punishing himself.
Regression 2015 Ending Explained; who is the rapist?
Bruce finds that lady who frequently comes up to his dreams as a Satanist ever since the case began. What if regression is the same thing. They are induced fantasies by us, by the media.
In his house, he gets assaulted by George and says he told him that night she is not stable but he didn’t believe him.
Coming back to church, Bruce emotionally tells Angela that he has solved the case. George confesses everything. He made up some stories in his mind from earlier and Angela acts like those things are true and that’s how she gets caught. All those made up stories are now laughing at her. Bruce says George and Angela were sleeping together but he refuses to take her responsibility.
When she realises her fate is gonna be like her mother. She took revenge by making up these stories and that bullshit regression therapy helped her to fulfil her intention. She used to call Bruce at night to scare him.
But Bruce can’t prove her guilt to the court as there is no proof. So he tries to reduce John’s punishment but he denies. He wants to get punished as he is responsible for her daughter’s present condition and her mother’s death.
Memorable quotes and dialogues; Regression 2015:
‘I am starting to use my head again.’
Bruce understands regression therapy is of no use. It creates a surreal world in people’s minds through hypnosis. When he understands that, it has already been too late but better late than never.
What is Regressive Hypnosis in Regression 2015?
Regression hypnosis therapy helps you to remember your memories that you don’t want to remember or you want to remember but can’t. Through the process you can enter your subconscious mind. But after years of research we get to know that it doesn’t bring out the true memories. It creates false memories that don’t help at all to recover your traumas.
In this movie, John, Roy go through the process but what they remember is not something that actually happened. It is something the doctor wants them to remember so they remember something untrue but mixed up with the truth.
‘Don’t treat people as bad as they are, treat them as good as you are.’
Vocabulary:
Lean on him until he breaks.
Putting pressure on someone until he acts in a certain way.
Desecrate:
Contaminate
Corroborate:
Permit
