Hypochondriac

A very powerful movie about trauma and mental illness, with solid direction and cinematography, only held up by the editing which at times goes over the top and frantic for a bit too long in the attempts to convey the main character's psychosis and anxiety attacks.

Zach Villa gives a Great main performance both in comedic and devastating moments, creating a wonderfully varied and whole portrait of a man haunted by his past and trying desperately to take control of his fragile mental state.

Devon Graye does a wonderful job portraying the sad sometimes sisyphic acts of a loved one who wants only to know our protagonist for his real damaged self.

A great watch for drama-horror lovers (and yes the main character is gay if that something you count as a downside, the internet was a mistake)

I hadn't heard about the 2022 movie "Hypochondriac" as I sat down to watch it. But I will say that the synopsis for the movie sounded interesting enough, and also the movie's cover/poster seemed interesting. And with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give "Hypochondriac" a chance.

But wow. Just wow.

This movie was an incredible swing and a miss of epic proportions.

The storyline in the movie, as written by writer and director Addison Heimann, fell entirely short of providing me with any sense of entertainment, so it was a real struggle to suffer through this slow paced and pointless narrative. And to make it even worse, nothing thrilling or interesting happened as the movie trotted on in a monotonous pace.

Granted, I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Hypochondriac", and that is usually something I enjoy when I watch a movie. However, the actors and actresses in this movie stood a snowballs chance in Hell of delivering anything worthwhile or wholesome on the screen, because the script was just hopelessly devoid of any such thing.

Now, "Hypochondriac" is listed as a horror, thriller and drama, well forget about this being a horror movie, unless counting boredom beyond belief as horror. As for the thriller aspect of the storyline, well it could be classified as a thriller if you stretch the term loosely enough.

This is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal so you don't have to.

My rating of this disappointing movie lands on a two out of ten stars.

I'm not usually a horror/thriller fan, but i do better with psychological stuff for sure and this was a good watch for me! Definitely some horror/gore/"body stuff" that made me squirm without completely losing me. What i found most compelling were the parental relationships and how those played out in will (main character)'s life - and for bonus points, there were a few AH HAH moments that got me in just the right spot. Recommend!!

I caught a screening of this during SWSW. Without giving away any spoilers, let's just say that this is absolutely nothing we haven't already seen before. The storyline seems to have borrowed pieces of concepts from previous films (who did it better). To me, Hypochondriac seemed poorly executed. The concept was overdone. The writing was weak. It's small budget was glaringly evident. And most of all, some characters felt miscast, most notably the film's main character Will, played by Zach Villa. Villa just did not have the intensity required to pull off his character, his acting came off as amateur and ultimately non-believable (even sometimes unintentionally funny). The film had some moments, but unfortunately, that's about it. It could have had more potential, but the uninspired casting and general execution makes this a "skip it". - HK.

So this movie is a little wacky and wild. By this i mean... well nothing. But jokes aside this movie is fine i guess.

To start off with i want to talk about the mental illness part of this horror. I thought this movies portrayal of mental illness was fine but offered nothing in terms of feeling. By this i mean if someone who had a similar mental illness was to watch this movie then maybe they would feel something (maybe). But if you suffer from nothing like this then this movie doesn't do much to make you feel sorry and/or sympathetic towards the main character. It's a mix and match and depending on your personal situation i feel it is either good or bad and nothing in between. This is why i think the way it's shown in this movie is average overall. When i say all this i do not mean to offend anyone or downplay metal illness in any-way. If you feel as if i have i do apologize.

Moving on to the story and i must say that i thought that this part of the movie was fine. I struggle to say much here as the story was pretty much the mind of the protagonist. But his mother, boyfriend and father were all key pieces of the puzzle. The movie is (just like before) pretty average in this department. The story isn't anything special (even compared to just horror), but wasn't at all bad in my eyes and is easily passable and watchable.

The cast of characters was absolutely fine in this movie and like the story is simply average. God, so far everything is average in this movie. The lead character was simply fine and so was the rest of the cast. Not a single character was poor but neither was anyone great. Everyone was easily passable but didn't deliver anything memorable.

The horror in this movie was pretty poor. Now i can understand (to an extent) that the mental health side of this may have hit with people and caused a type of fear or unsettling nature to be taken away from this movie. I can also point out one or two jumpscares which i didn't really expect, but i felt they were nothing special. Overall the horror in this movie (in my eyes) was simply lacking. It wasn't terrible but the costumed Wolf who looked goofy at times and the (at times) awkward hallucinations made this movies horror fall flat most of the time. For anyone wanting more than an average cast and story look elsewhere as the horror in this is mediocre at best. Horror is definitely not this movies strong point.

Story - 5/10

Cast - 5.5/10

Horror - 2.5/10

Portrayal of Leads Health - 4.5/10

Overall a pretty watchable movie with nothing special about it, 4/10.