Tolga Karacelik’s Psycho Therapy is a dark comedy drama starring Steve Buscemi, John Magaro, and Britt Lower. So, what happens if a serial killer approaches a writer and convinces him to write a book on serial killing? Will the writer survive to publish the story, or will he be killed in the process? Keane took pride in discussing his work in progress. It had been four years since he’d started working on a story set in 40000 BC, involving a Homosapien woman and the last Neanderthal man, and he was yet to produce the first draft. The problem with Keane was that he struggled to read the room; even when people laughed at him, he never really grasped what was going on. But his wife, Suzie, did. She could sense that no one was interested in her husband’s stories, and she was enraged seeing Keane humiliate himself. Their marriage was on the rocks, but will Keane ever learn to read his wife’s mind? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Keane agree to work on a serial killer novel?
Keane’s agent, David, was not impressed when Keane narrated the story he was working on. He thought it was inauthentic and hoped he could produce something that was more personal. Since Keane’s first novel was set in Mongolia, David nudged him to explore his Mongolian roots again, even though his client’s only connection with Mongolia was his grandmother, who had moved to New York at a young age. Just when Keane thought his meeting with David didn’t pan out as he’d expected, a stranger approached him. The man claimed to be his biggest fan and suggested that he base his next novel on a serial killer. Keane had no interest in exploring the life of a killer, and he politely declined the proposal. The man was somewhat persistent, and Keane promised to think about it.
After returning home, Keane focused on coming up with ways to improve his draft, and he failed to realize that Suzie, who was in the kitchen aggressively chopping onions, was in a terrible mood. She announced that she wanted a divorce, and Keane was taken completely by surprise. Suzie thought he should have seen it coming, and she mentioned how she’d lied to him the previous night about the signal turning green even though it was red. She was so done with their marriage she would’ve preferred to die than live with him another day. Keane wondered why he was such a disappointment to her. Suzie was tired of being the one who had to make decisions always. She had to deal with all their practical problems so that he could blissfully ignore how challenging it was to keep them afloat and only think about his novel, which she thought was quite a disaster.
Keane was devastated; his professional as well as his personal life was in jeopardy, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He thought he was a decent writer, especially after he won an award, but clearly the people around him didn’t, and he felt defeated all of a sudden. He ended up at a bar reconsidering all his life’s decisions. He wondered if he should consider the stranger’s advice and write about a serial killer, and to his surprise, the stranger showed up at the bar instantly. He’d been following Keane, and as luck would have it, his favorite writer had had the worst day, and his suggestion seemed to be his only ray of hope. The man, Kollmick, explained that he was a retired serial killer, and he wanted Keane to write about him. He promised to be Keane’s personal consultant to help him understand the psyche and modus operandi of a killer. Keane was drunk, and he considered the option. He invited Kollmick to his house to further discuss the proposal. When Suzie came downstairs to find a stranger at her house, she asked him who he was. Kollmick stated that he was Keane’s consultant, and when Suzie wanted more details, he ended up saying that he was a marriage counselor. Keane had told him how his marriage was on the rocks, and bringing home a marriage counselor in the middle of the night was the only sensible idea he could come up with. To Keane and Kollmick’s surprise, Suzie bought the story, and the next day she insisted Keane introduce her to the counselor. She was impressed that, for the first time, Keane had taken a decision all by himself, and she wanted to attend a few sessions before she finalized her decision. Keane had only one option—to work on the serial killer novel, and in return, Kollmick would pretend to be their marriage counselor.
What did Suzie discover while following Keane?
Suzie suspected Keane was planning on killing her after she came across his reading material. She wondered if he was being sweet and kind to her because he had already set his mind on murdering her. She became all the more suspicious when Keane cooked her her favorite meal. She had noticed a book on toxicology, and she wondered if he’d poisoned her food. Keane was a little surprised when Suzie refused to taste the wonderful meal he had made. Suzie later called her best friend, Zoe, to discuss the matter. Zoe didn’t give much thought to it and consoled her friend, hoping it was just another scare.
Suzie overheard Keane speaking on the phone, and she assumed he was discussing his murder plans with someone. She went back to her bed quietly and prayed and hoped that she would not be stabbed by her seemingly innocent husband. Suzie didn’t expect Keane to leave, and she decided to follow him in a cab. She couldn’t figure out what was going on when she saw Keane with their marriage counselor. Keane met Kollmick to get into the nitty-gritties of serial killing, such as procuring a gun or using chloroform on a target. It’s a comedy film, so of course you can’t expect things to work out smoothly. As anticipated, Keane and Kollmick’s meeting with the gangsters at the bar didn’t pan out well. Keane ended up mistakenly drugging the Albanian gun dealer, and they had no choice but to carry his body out of the back door and load him in their car. But Kollmick refused to call it a night without executing what they had planned. Keane had to drug his agent, David, and kidnap him to understand the emotional nuance involved in kidnapping a man, and Kollmick was hellbent on making their plan work. Keane didn’t have much of a choice; I mean, he was dealing with a serial killer. We can’t really blame him. David was ultimately drugged, and his body was loaded in their car.
All this while, Suzie had been watching them from a distance. She had no clue what was going on, but she was intrigued. Was her husband a murderer? And what did he intend to do with the bodies? Keane and Kollmick had an unconscious gun dealer and an agent in their backseat. Suzie watched Keane and her marriage counselor drag a body into a hotel in Chinatown. She called Keane, hoping to distract him or perhaps wake him up from what seemed to be a nightmare. But Keane didn’t respond; he panicked and broke his phone. Suzie didn’t have much of a choice, and she decided to call the reception of the motel. Somebody sleepily responded and tried to connect her with Kollmick, but he instructed the receptionist not to put the call through. Suzie insisted that he check on Kollmick because she believed there was something strange going on in that room, and her husband was there as well.
Kollmick intended to teach Keane about domination, something that was crucial in his trade. He believed that how one liked to be dominated was precisely how they secretly wanted to dominate others, and to truly determine Keane’s method of domination, he had to be in a helpless position; therefore, he was tied and gagged. By getting into the psyche of the victim, Keane would understand the emotions he could stir in his victims as a serial killer and use it to write his book authentically. While they were busy diving deep into all aspects of serial killing, the receptionist finally decided to put Suzie’s call through since she’d been pestering him for quite some time. Keane received the call, and he struggled to lie to his wife about his whereabouts. He quickly dropped the call and got back to his lesson. When the gun dealer came to his senses and started making noise, Kollmick went to the other room to shut him up, and surprisingly, that was exactly when the receptionist entered room 123 and found Keane tied to a chair with his mouth gagged. He asked if Kollmick had tied him up, but before he could get an answer, the serial killer knocked him out. Keane was disappointed in his consultant, but Kollmick believed that the receptionist would have called the police. Keane wondered if Kollmick was deriving pleasure from knocking people out, and he perhaps believed that there was some truth to his suspicions.
Will Suzie end up a serial killer?
Suzie had been watching the surveillance footage when the receptionist entered the room, and she was concerned when he didn’t step out. She decided to find out what was going on, and she finally confronted Keane, who was flabbergasted to see his wife enter the room. She demanded an explanation, but before Keane could say anything, Kollmick knocked her out as well, but this time, thankfully, Kollmick realized his mistake and didn’t tie her up. Suzie was traumatized when she came to her senses. She thought she would be killed because their house was in her name, and Keane would get complete ownership if he murdered her. Keane was shocked to learn about her theory. To make his case, he explained that Kollmick was not a marriage counselor; he was a retired serial killer, and he was helping him write a book about the life of a killer. He added that introducing him as a marriage counselor was easier than explaining what they were up to, so he did what he had to. Suzie was relieved to find out that Keane didn’t intend on killing her, and since Keane had come clean about his secrets, she decided to share how she had tried to kill him twice—she’d lied about the signal, and she had also leaked gas in their kitchen to start a fire. Before they could delve into Suzie’s murder ideas, she wanted to know if they had a plan. There was a spark in Suzie’s eyes, something that perhaps Kollmick recognized immediately. She wanted to take a look at the men they’d kidnapped. And while Keane thought it was a bad idea, Kollmick didn’t stop her. For the first time in a long, long while, Suzie didn’t feel disappointed in Keane. She was rather impressed that he was experimenting to such an extent. She felt alive and was attracted to Keane for daring to do something behind her back. He was playing with fire, and she approved of it.
During Psycho Therapy’s ending, Suzie had a gun in her hand, and she threatened to kill the receptionist if he dared to speak a word about the night to anyone. She reminded him that she knew where to find him, and he better not mess up their arrangement. Kollmick was impressed seeing how dominant Suzie could be. After the receptionist was released, Suzie aimed her gun at David. Kollmick asked her to aim higher so that the victim could look at the barrel and be even more intimidated, but Suzie misheard “higher” as “fire,” and she pulled the trigger, leading to momentary chaos.
The gun dealer realized he was dealing with a bunch of amateurs, and he threatened to destroy them and insulted Suzie. She was not ready to hear an old bald man call her a ‘bitch,’ so she pulled the trigger, and the man was dead in a second. Kollmick had unintentionally trained a possible serial killer. He wanted Keane to write a book based on his life, and to his surprise, in the process, he ended up coming across someone who was pretty much just like him, perhaps in his younger days. She was calm, calculative, and ruthless, and what could possibly be more rewarding for a retired serial killer than training a would-be serial killer to unleash chaos? Kollmick advised Suzie and Keane to go home while he took care of the body. The phone on the reception desk rang, and the audience is expected to guess the identity of the caller. My bet is on the taxi driver who had watched two men carry bodies inside the hotel. Will Kollmick kill the driver, or will Suzie deal with the trouble? It’s up to the audience to decide. But whatever your theory is, the only certainty is that the killings will not stop, especially after Suzie had tasted the joy of silencing someone forever.
What does the ending suggest?
In Psycho Therapy’s ending, we get a glimpse of the book Keane had been working on—not the serial killer one but his passion project that was set in 40000 BC Slovenia. The Homo sapiens were dying of cold, and the leader of the pack suggested that they raid the nearest Neanderthal cave so that they could feed themselves. The Homo sapiens were successful in killing the Neanderthals, and as they were about to devour them, a Homo sapien woman protested, saying it was unfair. She had lost her children and she could not imagine anyone consuming them. The woman was exiled from the tribe, and that was when she stumbled upon the last Neanderthal man. They could not trust one another for obvious reasons. They fought during the day, and at night, when it was unbearably cold, they snuggled together to fall asleep—and the cycle repeated. The ending largely talks about marriage (in this case, Suzie and Keane who were two polar opposite individuals), where it’s a constant cycle of overcoming or adjusting or fighting over differences but coming together because there is an irreplaceable sense of comfort. Often the issues or differences take center stage, but it’s the primal instinct that brings two people close together again. A relationship that is meant to be of close proximity and absolute trust is destabilized when the thought of death or murder is brought into the dynamics. We often say, “I love you to death,” an overwhelming, overbearing, devotional love that is impossible to justify and where morality has no role to play. But would you ever put up with your partner if you discovered that they were a killer? Is loving someone to the extent of mad obsession the love we crave for? Where do we draw the line, and when do we say no to our primal instincts? These are some of the few questions that might linger well after watching the film.
