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Past Life Movie Review by Matt Boiselle
Past Life directed by Simeon Halligan, written by Simeon Halligan, Ray Bogdanovich and Dean Lines and starring Aneurin Barnard, Jeremy Piven and Nicholas Farrell
Synopsis: A man who is skeptical of reincarnation undergoes hypnosis that reveals he may have been a serial killer in a past life. Together he teams with a hypnotist to try and uncover the true answers.
Hocus-pocus, why is my life all out of focus? We’ve all got questions along this line to some extent, and in Director Simeon Halligan’s mind-warping latest film “Past-Life”, there very well may be a connection to the suggestion of a previous life and someone being able to put you into a trance-like state to delve into the mystery. Just the idea of this one was starting to creep me out before I pressed the play button, so sit back and check out my review of this one…hopefully you don’t get VERY SLEEPY.
The movie opens in a Syrian stronghold after being captured, journalist Jason Frey is subject to the kind of mental anguish only contained in one’s worst nightmares – after being tortured himself, he’s then forced to watch as his colleague is brutally murdered right in front of him. We then move forward to roughly a half-dozen years later, and Jason is attempting to put all those ghastly afterthoughts behind him and build a family with his pregnant wife (Pixie Lott) aside from the nightmares that continue to plague his mind. One night they both attend a book show of a renowned hypnotist (Piven) who is discussing a topic on past-life regression, Jason is voluntarily placed into a trance and he suffers another traumatic episode – something has been awakened in his subconscious: he’s envisioned in his mind that he’s a black glove clad serial killer wreaking havoc in the 1980’s…now how’s that for a show? Now, together the two are working side-by-side, albeit for not necessarily the same reasons – the hypnotist smells cash when thinking about his latest discovery, and Jason is determined to dig up the real truth and make things right if he was in fact a cold-blooded killer in another time.
There’s more than enough swerves and side-roads in “Past Life” to keep the viewers guessing, and the story was written in such a way that flashbacks serve as a damning sentence of sorts, and through Halligan’s direction the film works very well in a progressive, even fashion. Performances are solid, and manage to convey their messages effectively, and aside from resolutions that appear to be a bit mired in a fog, the movie was entertaining – not sure if it warrants another visit to the hypnotist’s chair, as this one could have viewers feeling a bit out of it when the credits roll.
“Past Life” will be available on streaming services on March 24th, 2026.
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