Dr. Samuel Fry likes to think he is still an idealist, yet he seems to have an unhealthy attachment to his patient Veronica Bloom, sound of body but not of mind. When economic difficulties close his sanitarium, he takes her with him to his next gig at Dr. Harvey Langston’s unconventional mental clinic. Unfortunately, not only is Langston rather insane himself, he has created a sort of networked consciousness with his patients.
As an aging mad scientist, Langston hopes Fry will succeed him as lunatic-in-chief. Even with the X-Files-style implant in his head, Fry tries to fight the power and maintain his individual sense of self. He has a glaring weakness though: Bloom.
Daalder has a talent for subverting exploitation genres while scrupulously maintaining their outward conventions. Again, there are enough bare breasts in Hysteria to satisfy the demands of late night cable. However, his story has considerable intellectual heft and a number of clever wrinkles. Down the stretch, it even approaches the surreal, which is not atypical of Daalder’s filmography.
Memorably playing against his Prisoner image, McGoohan (post-Braveheart) projects the perfect arrogantly erudite presence as Langston. As Myrna Malloy, the first-among-equals inmate, Amanda Plummer (post-Pulp Fiction) effectively keeps viewers off balance. Though his character is tad slow with his suspicions, Michael Maloney (post-Branagh’s Hamlet), nicely conveys Fry’s do-gooder superciliousness and self-delusions.
