A young woman enters her kitchen, rubbing shampoo into her hair, as a gas burner glows on the stove and she leans over it as if it were the sink. Her hair bursts into flames, and although doctors and police later tend to her, the woman dies after a troubling memory loss. In the months that follow, ten more women mutilate their faces, a chilling pattern that unsettles the detective in charge, Dave Kennedy. He seeks insight from his friend, a psychiatrist and expert on hypnosis, Dr. Philip Hecht, who questions the use of hypnotic techniques on stage and warns against their dangers.
Detective Kennedy and his girlfriend, Marcia Blaine Marcia Henderson — along with her friend Dodie Wilson Merry Anders — decide to attend a stage show featuring a glamorous hypnotist named Desmond Jacques Bergerac. Kennedy remains skeptical about the science behind hypnosis, while the show unfolds with a striking demonstration: Dodie is hypnotized by Desmond to become rigid as a board, then levitated before an astonished audience. Just before Dodie is brought out of the trance, Desmond whispers something in her ear. Kennedy urges Dodie to admit the act is contrived, but Dodie insists she was not faking and disappears into the theater’s shadows once the outing ends. Back at home, Dodie uses caustic substances on her skin, an unsettling clue that deepens the mystery.
Marcia, increasingly unsettled, asks questions and discovers that Dodie cannot recall the events surrounding her burns. The trio splits up to investigate, and Marcia returns to Desmond’s show as a volunteer. This time, a device with concentric circles of flashing light is used to hypnotize her, yet Marcia manages to resist at first by closing her eyes before the command is given. Still, the fog of hypnosis thickens as Marcia later reports to Kennedy and Dr. Hecht that Desmond may be connected to the disturbing mutilations. The two men begin to suspect that a post-hypnotic command is driving the victims to seek Desmond’s aid, culminating in a midnight summons to his dressing room.
Marcia is drawn into Desmond’s orbit when she is chosen again as a target. Desmond leads her through a sequence of hypnotic demonstrations, punctuated by a sensational beatnik scene and a night that slips from reality into a deeper trance. The troupe and the hypnotist’s entourage travel from a restaurant to a beatnik coffee-house where poetry is recited and bodies sway to music, before returning to Marcia’s apartment. Desmond attempts to kiss her while Kennedy and Hecht stay in the hallway, unsure whether she is truly consenting or still under influence. Justine, Desmond’s assistant Allison Hayes, re-enters the fray, dismisses Desmond, and maintains Marcia under further hypnosis themselves. In a moment of outrage, Justine reveals her own intent: a ruthless willingness to push hypnosis to its limit, asking, “How many more?” and answering with the cold irony, “As long as there are faces like this.”
Inside Marcia’s apartment, Justine intensifies the cruelty by turning on the shower with scalding water and directing Marcia to step into a cool rinse. Kennedy and Hecht intervene only to find Marcia branded by the same shadow that haunts Dodie and the other victims. A crucial breakthrough occurs when they uncover a balloon bearing Desmond’s hypnotic eye design, a symbol linked to the stage show and found in the purse of a blinded woman. Dodie’s doctor confirms that she, too, dreaded the name Desmond, though she cannot recall any direct contact with the hypnotist.
Marcia, still under the thrall of the hypnotic influence, returns to the theater to witness a new display of mass hypnosis. Desmond demonstrates the power of suggestion to the audience, inviting the crowd to participate in a display of overwhelming mental control. Kennedy and Hecht break into the performance space, attempting to rescue Marcia, but Desmond activates the hypnotic eye to shield himself. Justine then drags Marcia onto a swinging catwalk, threatening to pull her into danger as she tears away her disguise to expose a face scarred in the same way as Dodie’s. A violent struggle ensues: Desmond overpowers Dr. Hecht, but Kennedy fires and brings him down. Justine, in a final act, leaps to her death beside Desmond, while Marcia, freed from the trance, is pulled back to reality by Hecht’s steady voice. The curtain falls on a cautionary note as Hecht addresses the audience, urging them never to surrender their minds to hypnosis without rigorous medical supervision.
The story closes on a sober reminder that hypnotic manipulation, even when performed as entertainment, can blur the lines between performance and danger. The film leaves viewers with the sense that curiosity, when paired with power and vulnerability, can lead down a shadowed path where memory, identity, and consent are all at stake. It is a chilling meditation on control, trust, and the price of spectacle, anchored by a string of performances that tumble from illusion into a perilous reality.
