Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis, a pioneering Austrian neurologist who gave us foundational theories about repression, transference, dream analysis, and the concept of the unconscious mind’s division into the id, ego and superego—not to mention, of course, the Oedipal complex. Few men have had a greater impact on modern society than Freud, and yet despite the immense influence of his work, there’s one thing no one has known about him until now, courtesy of Freud: his scientific breakthroughs were facilitated by an early-career encounter with mind-controlling, demon-conjuring hypnotists.
Stunning, right? Let’s just say that Netflix’s Freud is nothing like a traditional biopic, even if showrunners Marvin Kren, Stefan Brunner and Benjamin Hessler’s eight-part foreign-language series (debuting March 23) does ground its action in Freud’s groundbreaking approach to treating—and understanding—the human mind. A period-piece thriller that begins in a vein similar to that of The Alienist and then devolves into unholy supernatural insanity, it’s an affair that won’t win any awards for historical accuracy—but, in the final tally, is better off for succumbing to its own baser impulses.
At least initially, Freud doesn’t tip its hand about the madness to come. In 19th century Austria, enterprising Freud (Robert Finster) attempts to master hypnosis—a practice he believes will allow physicians to tap into the subconscious parts of the mind that govern our behavior. Freud is convinced that people diagnosed with “hysteria” are often suffering from memories of past traumas. That puts him on the outs with his fellow doctors, although compounding Freud’s problems is the fact that his hypnosis talents are so ineffectual that, in a demonstration for his professor and colleagues, he has to resort to having his housekeeper Lenore (Brigitte Kren) pretend to be a patient who’s miraculously cured by his trance-like therapy. He’s a quasi-charlatan whose methods haven’t yet caught up with his revolutionary principles.
He’s also, it turns out, a deep-in-debt coke fiend whose Jewish heritage exacerbates his outsiderdom. Finster embodies his protagonist as a stern and determined bushy-bearded rebel, and his resoluteness in the face of omnipresent skepticism and disapproval helps give the material its early sober energy. It’s not long, however, before Freud becomes totally, crazily pulpy. That transformation begins with Freud having the body of a mutilated prostitute literally dropped on his office desk by Inspectors Kiss (Georg Friedrich) and Poschacher (Christoph F. Krutzler). The suspected murderer of this innocent working girl is Georg von Lichtenberg, Kiss’s former military superior, who during a prior war ordered Kiss to commit a horrifying homicidal act in order to save his son from execution (which, alas, only ended in further tragedy). Kiss’s PTSD over this incident manifests itself physically, as a painfully cramped hand—one of many things which confirm Freud’s theory that hidden thoughts and emotions affect our physical being.
Not content with simply turning Freud into an amateur Sherlock Holmes-ian sleuth on the trail of a Jack the Ripper-ish serial killer, Freud soon puts the good doctor into contact with Fleur Salome (Ella Rumpf), a fetching medium who’s first introduced holding a séance at the home of her foster parents, Countess Sophia (Anja Kling) and Count Viktor (Philipp Hochmair). Through a cavalcade of preposterous intertwined twists, it’s revealed that Fleur is actually being manipulated by Sophia, whose hypnosis skills are so great—and so put Freud’s own abilities to shame—that she can compel people to do her wicked bidding.
While her motivations for wielding Fleur as a weapon are, for the first few episodes, shrouded in mystery, Sophia does this nefarious puppeteering via a psychosexual combination of spoken suggestions and physical contact. The subsequent revelation that hypnosis also apparently creates a lustful bond between patient and practitioner—the result being a hot-and-steamy affair between Fleur and Freud, the latter of whom is expected to marry a motherly paramour—only amplifies the proceedings’ hysterical commingling of reality and fantasy.
From there, Freud quickly ratchets up the silliness, as Freud is forced to unravel and thwart a vengeful Austro-Hungarian political conspiracy carried out by extravagant villains who use ancient Satanic blood rituals to brainwash their slaves and summon an evil demon named Táltos. With suitably-cheesy flair, director Kren embellishes his tale with a steady stream of smeary, spooky dreams and visions (rife with blood-streaked maniacs and animal heads) that contribute to an atmosphere that’s more lurid than lucid. He also peppers his narrative with enough engaging characters and subplots to guarantee that the action stays interesting throughout—save, that is, for a concluding chapter that wraps things up in its first ten minutes, and then spends the remainder of its runtime on a crushingly anticlimactic coda. Between flesh-eating opera singers, severed toes, pagan symbols, Egyptian mummies and duels to the death, the series doesn’t lack for genre lunacy, which it generally leans into with amusing gusto.
Freud’s radical ideas ultimately take a backseat to magical mumbo jumbo, and yet Freud is funniest when it boldly attempts to integrate them into its increasingly hysterical narrative, culminating with a hypno-trance sequence in which the neurologist tries to strangle his father and screw his mother, who then mutates into Freud’s virginal and whorish love interests. Everyone involved is possessed by some subconscious rage, longing or distress that sends them careening off in wild directions, and the story eventually veers into overt horror-movie territory, replete with madmen locked up in Hannibal Lecter-ish restraints in dingy basements, angry specters haunting the living, and witches casting their spells by rabidly foaming into victims’ mouths.
Freud is only a small step away from the sort of absurd historical fiction of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and its dedication to marrying truth with paranormal nonsense proves reasonably enlivening, right up to a wacko climax that’s at least partially indebted to The Shining. It’s neither scientifically accurate nor remotely believable, but it is an entertainingly gonzo saga of suspense and intrigue—regardless of what Freud might say about viewers’ desire for such trashy stuff.
