Patrick

Saw this in it's limited run in Melbourne. The movie is quite strange and has just the right amount of creepy to keep you entertained for the entire running time, but I feel this should've added a prequel element to make the obsessiveness work better.

The acting was great, and the film is pretty average, but if you are into these psychological films than you'd probably enjoy it more than I did.

Sharni Vinson is great as the leading lady and new nurse at the hospital, and she always has this believability about her which is great. Rachel Griffiths was also fantastic as the head nurse and every time she popped up you wanted to find out what the deal is with her being so cold and black hearted.

The nurse Kathy Jacquard (Sharni Vinson) travels to an isolated psychiatric clinic seeking a new job to forget her former boyfriend Ed Penhaligon (Damon Gameau). She is interviewed by the chief of the nurses Matron Cassidy (Rachel Griffiths) and by Doctor Roget (Charles Dance) and he asks Cassidy to hire her. Kathy befriends Nurse Williams (Peta Sergeant) that introduces her friend Brian Wright (Martin Crewes) to her.

Kathy feels attracted by the comatose patient Patrick (Jackson Gallagher), who is the guinea pig in cruel and unethical experiments of Dr. Roget. She also learns that Patrick actually feels the external stimulus inflicted by Dr. Roget. Further she finds a means to communicate with Patrick and soon she discovers that he has the power of telekinesis. Kathy decides to help Patrick that becomes obsessed for her. Patrick uses his ability to harm and kill everyone close to Kathy and she realizes that he is an evil threat that must be destroyed. Will it be possible?

"Patrick" is an average horror movie with a story that entwines a mad scientist in a hospital with telekinesis. The plot recalls those movies from the 70's and 80's and I found that it is a remake of an unknown 1978 Australian flick. This movie entertains but is absolutely forgettable. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Patrick, O Despertar do Mal" ("Patrick, The Awakening of the Evil")

I watched the original 1978 Patrick for the first time the other day to prepare for the remake. It was rather boring, but had that certain vague 1970s creepy charm that kept me from turning it off. I watched the 2013 remake today and was equally bored. Production values are higher this time, but this version is full of stupid CGI and annoying false scares punctuated by a shrill, awful soundtrack.

The cast are OK, although the original 1978 actor who played Patrick was far superior than the new guy who looks like a gay male model. Charles Dance is normally a wonderful actor but given nothing to do beyond a bland rehash of every other villain he's ever played. Rachel Griffiths is horribly boring as the Matron (as with Patrick himself, the 1978 original actor was much better and creepier).

The script is the main problem, just like the threadbare original. The idea of a comatose telekinetic pervert possessed by erotomania for his nurse is an interesting idea, but it's never fully developed. There's too much else going on that takes away from that relationship.

To be honest, I saw the 1980 Italian pseudo-sequel, Patrick Still Lives (aka Patrick Vive Ancora), a few years ago, and I found that ridiculous gorefest much more fun than either the original or remake. It's worth a watch just for the levitating fireplace poker scene! Another Italian film that rips off Patrick (and is full of gore) is Lucio Fulci's Aenigma.

I don't know why so many filmmakers fail to grasp the concept that sometimes less is more.

This remake of "Patrick" is a good example. The whole movie has an amateurish look, simply due to the use of a color filter to give it a 'dark', 'greyish' atmosphere. It just looked ridiculously fake. As did the rain filter, the CGI lift shaft shot, the car headlights and so on.

Editing was terrible too. As a matter of fact, everything about this movie was bad, the exception being Pino Donaggio's score (which was not great either, but at least acceptable).

As for the cast, Charles Dance does what he can, but the poorly written screenplay does not help things much.

And don't even get me started on the final jump 'scares'...

Patrick is a Australian remake of an earlier Aussie horror film of the same name, which I haven't seen. This is a pretty average par for the course horror effort involving a comatose young man with telekinetic powers and his involvement with a nurse, played by a convincing Sharni Vinson, who is first trying to care for him and later trying to escape his psychic stalking of her. It and the original were clearly influenced by the mid-70's success of Brian de Palma's adaption of Stephen King's Carrie. Charles Dance seems to be getting used to this "B" grade stuff he keeps showing up in and Rachel Griffiths literally sleepwalks through her role.

All straight up but I need to talk about the sets, settings and costumes.

I have no idea why film-maker's don't use more logic when structuring their storylines. In this film, unsuspecting nurse Kathy gets a job at a private psychiatric hospital, whose patients are all comatose due to a variety of trauma. All good. But why doesn't the hospital look like a hospital? It is dark and dirty. And there are only ever 4 staff seen to service at least 12 different patients! 1 doctor and 3 nurses! How do you work out a 24/7 staff roster with only 4 staff members? Where's the orderlies, receptionists, accounts people, cleaning and kitchen staff? And why doesn't anyone ever think to turn on a light. Why are the nurses wearing uniforms that went out of fashion 50 years ago? Kathy, as we suspect turns out to be a bit of a bright, independent spark. But given the state of the hospital, I couldn't ever see her accepting a job there in a million years, especially with the welcome we see her receive. It's just extremely lazy story-telling. Chances are if the director had set everything up more realistically, the audience would be more likely to be engaged with the film, rather than the general sense of deja vue, many like me would experience, even allowing, we may not have seen the original.

Speaking of Kathy and reality, she must be exceedingly resilient. Late in the film we see her tossed through a glass bathroom shower screen. The gory result is that we see her writhing on the floor, after suffering multiple abrasions and a huge cut on her forearm, which would require mega-stitching at the very least, as you might expect. Yet the very next scene we see her in, she's rushed back to the hospital, not a mark on her, seemingly suffering no inconvenience from the blood-splattered injuries she'd just previously endured. It's like the director and script-writer have agreed, that we used her in that last gory scene, but we need her for the next one too, so we'll hope no one notices or cares.

This is exactly the reason movies like Patrick are such "B" grade fare and will always continue to be, whilst lackadaisical filming techniques such as outlined above, are employed.