Inspired by the wave of “satanic abuse” cases that haunted America in the late 80s, this uneven chiller from Spanish writer/director Alejandro Amenábar, still best known for 2001’s The Others, straddles the line between psychological suspense and supernatural horror. Ethan Hawke is small-town Minnesota detective Bruce Kenner, who believes that local girl Angela Gray (Emma Watson) is the victim of demonic rituals. Assisted by David Thewlis’s beardy psychologist, Kenner delves into the tortured landscape of repressed memory, convinced that answers lie therein. Vacillating between indulging and puncturing its post-Rosemary’s Baby paranoias, Regression may be largely forgettable fare, but at least its unhysterical heart is in the right place.
