Movie theaters have been finding increasingly elaborate ways to make going to the movies an experience. From the moving seats and environmental effects of 4DX to ScreenX’s panoramic screens and Disney’s new Infinity Vision premium large-format initiative, exhibitors are looking for ways to make moviegoing special. But a theater in the Netherlands has come up with something considerably stranger. It wants to hypnotize audiences into forgetting their favorite movies so they can experience them for the first time all over again.
On November 9th, Dutch theater chain Pathé will conduct an unusual experiment at its Buitenhof cinema in The Hague, where 30 moviegoers will undergo hypnosis before watching a film they’ve already seen. The idea is to temporarily suppress their memories of the story, allowing them to experience its surprises, emotional moments, and plot twists as though they were entirely new. The experiment, called Pathé REWIND, was announced by the theater chain on October 26th. Participants were invited to choose between four movies: The Matrix, Se7en, La La Land, and Interstellar. One film will be selected based on the group’s preferences. All 30 participants will undergo individual online hypnosis sessions with Victor Kraemer, a hypnotherapist with more than 30 years of experience. On November 9th, they’ll receive another hypnosis session immediately before watching the selected movie together.
Anyone who has ever wished they could experience the ending of The Sixth Sense again without knowing the twist can probably appreciate the appeal. Some movies are fundamentally changed by knowing what happens. David Fincher’s Se7en spends its entire running time building toward a devastating revelation, while The Matrix famously pulls the rug out from under its audience by revealing the true nature of reality. But can hypnosis actually make someone forget an entire movie? Hypnosis isn’t just a party trick. It has legitimate clinical applications, including pain management, anxiety reduction, and behavioral therapy. The Mayo Clinic recognizes its therapeutic uses but also warns of potential side effects, including anxiety, emotional distress, and sleep disturbances. These reactions are supposedly rare, but they do happen.
That’s what makes Pathé’s experiment a little concerning. The theater isn’t using hypnosis to treat a medical condition. It’s attempting to suppress memories for entertainment, then sending participants to watch movies that might be emotionally disturbing. Se7en, while a great film, is a questionable choice after messing with someone’s head, given its graphic subject matter and horrifying ending. What happens if someone has an unexpected reaction to the hypnosis or the movie? And how long are the effects supposed to last? Do we really want to hypnotize someone and immediately show them one of the darkest movies ever made? Didn’t Kubrick already do this in A Clockwork Orange?
Movie theaters have a long history of unusual gimmicks to attract audiences. Horror director William Castle famously installed vibrating devices under theater seats for 1959’s The Tingler, while Smell-O-Vision attempted to bring the smells of a movie into the auditorium. More recently, Lionsgate promoted Stephen King’s The Long Walk with a special screening at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles, where audiences had to walk on treadmills for the entire movie. Anyone who dropped below three miles per hour was removed from the theater. But there’s something particularly unsettling about a theater that wants to mess with your memory instead of your other senses.
What could possibly go wrong? In high school, I participated in a basic demonstration of hypnosis. While hypnotized, I was instructed to raise my hand. I walked away convinced that nothing had happened. None of the suggestions seemed to stick. Except for the next decade, I would raise one arm straight into the air while I slept. I’m not particularly eager to be hypnotized and end up reciting the Nicole Kidman pledge every night.
Will the theater show its usual advertisements and trailers after the hypnosis? Because if you’re trying to manipulate someone’s memory immediately before a movie, the last thing you want is for the experiment to end with 30 people suddenly having an unquenchable craving for Coca-Cola. Pathé REWIND is free for the 30 participants, although applications closed on October 29th. The theater hasn’t announced which of the four movies will be screened or whether its experiment will actually succeed in making audiences forget anything. We’ll find out what happened after November 9th. Hopefully, the next day’s headlines won’t be about 30 moviegoers losing their minds in a theater in The Hague. Let’s hope the group picks La La Land.
