Dead Again

In 1948, the newspapers recount a brutal robbery that left Margaret Strauss dead by stabbing, with her anklet mysteriously missing. Her husband, the composer Roman Strauss, is quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. Before the execution, a reporter named Gray Baker visits Roman, and a whispered secret slips into the room as Roman leans in close. Baker never discloses what was said, leaving a chilling aura of unresolved guilt hovering over the case.

Fast forward forty-three years, and private detective Mike Church is drawn to a new enigma. An amnesiac woman appears at the orphanage where Mike grew up, unable to speak and haunted by nightmares. He takes her in and enlists his friend Pete Dugan to circulate her photo and his contact information. An antiques dealer and hypnotist, Franklyn Madson, suggests hypnosis as a path to recovery, then proposes a more provocative method: past-life regression. Skeptical but intrigued, Mike watches as the sessions unfold. The woman begins to describe Margaret and Roman’s lives in the third person, and both Mike and the woman bear an uncanny resemblance to the doomed couple.

As the sessions progress, Mike nicknames the woman Grace and finds himself falling for her. A man named Doug materializes, claiming to be her fiancé, but Mike soon uncovers that he is lying and drives him away. Under hypnosis, Grace recalls how Roman, despite past wealth, struggled with writer’s block and dwindling funds, and how he believed Margaret flirted with Gray Baker. Tensions rise as Margaret catches Frankie, the housekeeper’s son, rifling through her jewelry, and Roman refuses to dismiss Inga—who had once saved his life in Nazi Germany—despite mounting strain in their marriage. Grace’s memory seems to fracture when she witnesses Mike standing over Margaret with scissors, and she fears he intends to kill her. This fear drives Mike to undergo a deeper regression, hoping to uncover the truth, but he finds himself dwelling in a fog where lines between past and present blur.

The revelation arrives when Pete Dugan identifies Grace as artist Amanda Sharp, and it becomes clear that Grace’s amnesia stemmed from a mugging. Amanda, still afraid of Mike, accompanies Dugan and Madson to her apartment, while Madson’s therapy escalates into danger. Through further investigation, Baker maintains that Roman did not confide in him but instead kissed him, and hints that Inga and Frankie started an antiques shop. The truth comes into sharper focus: Frankie—real name Franklyn Madson—was the killer, driven by a web of jealousy and deceit.

Mike confronts Inga and learns the full 1948 backstory: Inga confessed her love to Roman, but he rejected her. Frankie blamed Margaret for his mother’s unhappiness, murdered her with scissors, and stole the anklet. Roman was found covered in Margaret’s blood with the murder weapon in hand. After the execution, Inga took Frankie to London, where he learned hypnotherapy and past-life regression. Returning to Los Angeles, Frankie became convinced that Margaret’s spirit would seek revenge through Amanda. He hires Doug to keep Mike and Amanda apart while he quietly prepares to kill Amanda himself. Inga apologizes for her role and hands Mike the anklet, the final clue in a case that has spiraled through time.

Armed with the truth, Mike heads to warn Amanda, but she shoots him in fear. Frankie—Revealed as Madson—tries to frame Amanda, placing the scissors in Mike’s grasp and pressing for a fatal confrontation. Mike revives, and in a struggle, stabs Madson in the leg. Pete arrives and misreads the scene, tackling Mike. As Madson lunges for a pistol, Amanda delivers a decisive blow, stabbing him in the back with the very scissors once used in the original murder. In a last, violent surge, Madson charges Mike, only to be outmaneuvered by Amanda’s clever placement of a sculpture, which unintentionally leads to Madson impaling himself. The film closes on a tender montage: Mike and Amanda embracing, set against the memories of Margaret and Roman sharing happier times. The past and present collide in a haunting meditation on memory, guilt, and the-day-to-day fight to separate truth from illusion.

Last Updated: October 14, 2025 at 04:07