Recently I watched the Australian horror film ‘Patrick’ (1978) for the first time. All I knew about was it was based around a bed-ridden man who was unable to move, and that he could influence events by the power of his mind.
I started watching and perhaps because I went into it with very little expectations I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice slow-burn low budget horror film, which was on the whole quite straightforward, with good acting and occasionally character based humorous moments.
We get a good scene of Patrick before his accident at the start and this shows him to be a loathsome fellow. We don’t get to see the incident that makes him bed-ridden. But we get it explained to us when the heroine is introduced that he has been in this state for several years (three I think).
Patrick influences things, and very slowly we see our heroine put two and two together and work out what is happening. We get some great bits with a typewriter that Patrick is trying to communicate through.
I won’t say any more about this film as I don’t want to spoil it, for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. I won’t do the same for the next film, because you should probably avoid it.
Well Crazy Man Michael, here's below is the link.
I would be interesting to hear if you agree, or disagree on my points
https://rarelust.com/?s=Patrick+still+lives
I haven't seen any of those, but I must say I like the sound of the Italian rip off more than the original :-D
Thanks Mal,
That's a lot of Patrick!
I wonder what the collective noun is for a load of Patricks?
I see the first one on your list of link (the remake) has a trailer which I couldn't help but watch.
So we have Charles Dance in the doctor role, now much more actively sinister. The hospital is now old and gothic, it can't be anything but a nest of ghosts (I wonder if the Addams Family might be the landlords).
The nurses uniforms are the old-fashioned ones with the little hat, I think these were phased out in the mid-70s. The Patrick actor is now, as I guess modern parlance would have it is physically 'well-fit' it amazing that he can have such muscle tone after lying there inactive for so long. I guess psychic powers are a full-body work out in themselves! The trailer seems to show a few scenes the same as the original, but ramped up considerably with more CGI and more spectacle.
One bit I don't like is the typing - I understand a mechanical typewriter the need for the keys getting pressed down, but replacing this with a computer - I don't see the need for the keys to be pressed down.
There seems to be loss of subtlety. I expect the original would have loved the budget and the capability to do the special effects of this new one. I have mixed feelings about this as, Patrick (1978) is a good film, but not some amazing touchstone like say Jacob's Ladder (1990) which has influenced pop culture enormously. The latter's remake I wouldn't entertain (lightening is hard to trap in a bottle twice) but, with Patrick I'm thinking it might have the possibility of being fun, if only for Charles Dance chewing the scenery.
But it's from 2013 and I haven't heard of it, hmmm, is there a reason perhaps that it went under by radar?
Let's examine the IMDB ratings
Patrick (2013) has 4.9 out of 10
Patrick (1978) has 6.1 out of 10 (which I think is fair, but I would give it a 7)
Patrick Still Lives (1980) has 5.6 out of 10 (which is a over generous score)
There's a remake of Patrick: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2147459/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_4
But don't confuse it for this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6542108/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_2
or this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9426974/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_5
or this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7618604/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1
(Edited for spelling, and I probably missed many mistakes)
Later on, on the Internet I saw that there was a sequel called ‘Patrick Still Lives (1980). Now I say, sequel but I should say fake sequel because it uses uses the name Patrick and also involves a bed-ridden man with special powers. None of the same actors are in it and rather than being Australian this is an Italian effort. 1980 is not far enough into the decade to take on the feel of an eighties movie, and this has a very ‘70s feel, it feels even older than the earlier much superior Patrick film.
Patrick gets injured at the beginning; something (a brown object, possibly a bottle) is thrown at him from a little mini-bus, while what we later learn is his father, nearby watching. Then we see doctors operating and then we move on to guests arriving at the isolated mansion. We get to know the guests and the secretary who works at the mansion and we see that it is Patrick’s father that has invited them by letter to stay there for a holiday. He is apparently a doctor (an world class expert in mad science no doubt).
We learn that Patrick is immobile in a room in this mansion and that three other people, two men and a women are in an adjoining room similarly immobile (I’d speculate that these are there as booster or batteries for Patrick’s powers, but this is never explained) and connected to ‘machines’ which lab coated extras fuss over.
The guests bicker, one is killed off (magically a whole swimming pool is heated to boil him to death – the amount of energy this would take to do it would be possible to work out and I think a little beyond any mind with special powers), the secretary is drawn via ‘powers’ into Patrick’s room but she flees, tension rises amongst the guests, apparently they all have secrets that have enabled them to be blackmailed to be here.
Yet again the secretary is drawn into Patrick’s room and this time she loses her clothes, licks the metal frame of the headboard of Patrick’s bed and writhes and touches herself on the sofa that’s in the room.
Clearly I though at this point Patrick’s got good taste, she is the prettiest of the guests. Anyway, the story (what there is of it) progresses, the guest bicker more, the secretary is distraught in her room over what has happened. We have a dinner scene in which the bickering builds into a full-blown catfight.
What is good fun is watching the doctor-dad during this, he just continues to eat like nothing is happening (this is hilarious). Then lots of nudity as guest wander around naked in their rooms, someone steals a letter from a room, One guest tries to seduce another.
Then we get more killing of the guests (some of which are quite nasty, especially one with a poker and a naked lady which I fast forwarded through), but none of this seems to add to the plot. At one point, early on, Patrick attempt to communicate by typewriter, but this is never followed up or built upon by the secretary. We never learn anything about Patrick’s character :(
When all are the guests have been gruesomely dispatched (I’ve never liked electric windows on cars) Patrick’s doctor father implores Patrick to finish them all of, apparently the secretary is also on the hit list of people that Patrick’s doctor dad wants him to kill. It becomes clear to the doctor-dad that Patrick won’t kill this last person and so the doctor with syringe full of something nasty goes off to do the job himself.
The revelation here is that all the loathsome people that were invited to the mansion were in the little mini-bus that delivered the injuring object out of the window that did Patrick in.
Doctor-dad falls victim to his own syringe with the help of some psychic powers and an unwilling victim – we get a pair of floating eyes super-imposed over the footage when Patrick uses his powers, it’s not a subtle effect, but it’s okay and it is used quite a few times in this film.
Anyway the secretary stumble-screams her way through the mansion seeing various bodies (the three immobile patients have writhed naked and died, the lab-coated men looking after the machine have been electrocuted by the machines), until she is finally in Patrick’s room.
Ah, I though this is the bit it’s all built up to, we’ll either get one of two outcomes, either the secretary will managed to thwart Patrick’s powers and defeat him, or will get her eyes looking glazed over as she fawns over her new master – having surrendered her will to his powerful mind. I watched wondering which of these they’d go for.
Which do you think?
Can you think of a suitable third option?
I suppose in the back of my mind I was half expecting the same little twist of the knife that the original Patrick used – after all they are ripping of the idea of the original, why not steal some more good bits?
Let me explain what happened and you’ll see why I was disappointed.
The secretary, upset stands by the bed by Patrick’s waist, and then just knees beside the bed and buried her head in her hands. And then we get the final shot of the movie before the end credits a close up of Patrick’s hand! and then his face (the stock seems to degrade at this point), the hand may have twitched a little bit, but frankly at this point as the credit come up with a scream, I couldn’t care enough to rewind to see if it was a twitch or not.
Hmmm, okay I knew going in this was going to one of the most ‘sleaziest exploitation sickies’, as one brief summary put it, but really I would have liked an ending, I would have liked each death to have added to the story as well, but I would settle for an ending, not just an narrative that is abandoned, when there is surely at least one more horror trick they could pull out of writer’s sleeve.
This nutty film has got to be cut somewhat, even though this I’ve just watched, no, that’s the wrong word, endured, yes that’s better the English subtitled Italian language version which is longer than the English dubbed one.
I cannot believe this is the actual ending the film.
I think if I hadn't seen the original Patrick, of which this is, as I already mentioned a fake sequel to, then I would be even more confused.
Avoid, or watch with your finger hovering over the fast forward button.