Sankari_Suomi
Largely ignored 2013 remake of the little known 1978 Australian psychological thriller! This awkward, self-conscious homage to the original is made even worse by inconsistent acting and the clumsy overuse of not-particularly-good CGI. Walter Dance was somehow roped into a lead role (possibly via blackmail) but not even his commanding presence can mask the appalling stench of this dunger.Shot in a controversial colour palette of teal and brown, Patrick features a Pino Donaggio score, a half-written script, Walter Dance eating a frog, and more B-grade horror tropes than you can throw a dog at.Best line: 'You are a prissy, meddling little bitch who's wasting my precious time, and I would dearly love you to **** off!' Worst line: 'Patrick wants his hand job!'I rate Patrick at 9.99 on the Haglee Scale, which works out as a shocking 3/10 on IMDb.
ElWormo
One of the hammiest newer horrors I've seen in a while, in fact the actor who plays the feebly menacing doctor/love interest 'Brian' should have a statue made out of ham just for his performance of 100% cardboard.This movie might also deserve an award for most jump scare attempts in a horror, to the point where it seems like every time a door randomly opens/closes its accompanied by that whooshing bang sound. None of these attempts really work.There are tons of moments in Patrick that are clearly tailored just for that woeful kind of en masse 'cinema reaction', where everyone either laughs, jumps, or goes ewwww. Worst example being some horribly crude attempts at humour in the script, plus the addition of a 'hilarious' (not) comedy character, an old guy obsessed with clocks and a lighthouse. What was he even for? Like so many horrors, the part of the movie that's supposed to be the most exciting (the last third/climax) is actually the most boring. The opening half hour was easily more engrossing. Another problem is too much CGI. Sometimes the entire room/situation a character was in looked like it was entirely CGI. A certain car scene looked more like a video game...And to cap it off we have Charles Dance, playing the part of Charles Dance.Despite all this and more problems I can't be bothered to elaborate on, Patrick somehow manages to be okay (just) thanks to some snappy directing and a story that never actually drags. Overall a middling popcorn horror affair, for people that are probably more interested in their popcorn than what they're watching.
cliffmacdev
So very disappointing. You have Charles Dance and Rachel Griffith. Actors really don't get any better. Then you have that ludicrous soundtrack! Why? Why? By themselves with a poor script and limited budget, both Dance and Griffith would be riveting! Who was the imbecile that signed off on that soundtrack? Great setting, believable story line and then that moronic soundtrack. Whoever is responsible should be outlawed from the movie business. The director should be castigated. Charles Dance and Rachel Griffith, really, what was the director thinking? One simply has to focus the movie entirely on them, no directing, just improvisation by both. That's how good they are. It's impossible to find any other actor that does what Charles Dance can do,maybe, Gary Oldman, but he doesn't have Dance's presence.And, Rachel Griffith can act the socks off her contemporaries.So very, very disappointed!!!
Pamela De Graff
Patrick (1978) is a unique horror film from Australia, written by Everett De Roche who brought us three of Australia's most unusual and imaginative "exploitation" era horror films, The Long Weekend (1978) and its superb 2008 remake Nature's Grave (formerly reviewed here), Harlequin (1980), and Razorback (1984). In the 1978 film, bug-eyed Patrick is a catatonic mental hospital patient with a disturbing countenance and an even more disturbed psyche.Through telekinesis, Patrick embarks on a one-sided romance with his pert, sympathetic caregiver, Nurse Kathy after she determines that he's not brain dead despite her administrators' claims to the contrary. How does Kathy figure this out? You must watch the movie to see it for yourself. Her strategy is surely lifted from a twisted scene in Dalton Trumbo's horrifying and controversial 1971 anti-war drama, Johnny Got His Gun.Jealous of Kathy's paramours, and threatened by the hospital's director who has designs on him for sick experimentation, Patrick wreaks havoc by maliciously employing his special abilities. The idea isn't new; we saw it in the 1953 sci-fi movie, Donovan's Brain, based on Curt Siodmak's classic horror novel, about the possession of a scientific researcher by a willful tycoon, who exists as a brain kept alive in a laboratory tank.In Patrick, Richard Franklin, who went on to direct Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacey Keach in the eerie Aussie, two-lane blacktop odyssey, Road Games (1981), and then brought us Psycho II (1983), does a pretty good job with this offbeat psychic concept by crafting Patrick into a straight- forward, memorable horror movie. The film was well-produced on a small budget, and despite a few flaws, withstands the test of time. Thirty six years later it's still a tensely compelling, watchable horror flick.So why remake it?With some exceptions, horror-movie re-dos often leave something to be desired. There have been a few good ones though. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) and The Thing (1982) come to mind. Without losing any of the charm of the originals, these subsequent shoots effectively capture the essences of their predecessors. New technology allowed graphic, frightening special effects. But importantly, the new versions of these films don't rely on showcasing new technology. They were made to better communicate their respective stories, and the improved production techniques enhanced, rather than replaced, solid literary devices.Sometimes however, horror movies lose something in translation when they're updated to a modern context and to our contemporary values. To skirt the problem of predictability, filmmakers frequently alter the endings. This can be a bad idea, because the scriptwriters usually got it right the first time. Changes tend to either miss the point entirely, or lose the impact of the original.The remake of Planet Of The Apes (1968) is a good example of a movie with a second-rate, amended climax. It simply can't compare to one of the most dramatic endings ever in American cinema, when in the 1968 film, astronaut Taylor (Charleton Heston) rounds a bend on a desolate beach and comes face to face with the wreckage of a famous idol from his past. That one, now iconic, chilling frame instantly and powerfully communicates the ironic, emotional thrust of the entire film.Wonderfully, documentarian Mark Hartley's 2013 revamping of Patrick, entitled Patrick: Evil Awakens, is a positive departure from the trend of lame remakes. The new version is faithful to the original, but subtly tightens up the script, introducing credible character motivations, and tweaking the timing to build additional suspense. With a bigger budget and modern cinematic tools, the new Patrick is sleek, tight, and appropriately much darker and creepy. Italian horror composer Pino Donaggio whose credits include Brian de Palma's Carrie (1976) and Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973) contributes a sharp, sassy score.The refinements do Patrick justice in a way which demonstrates that Hartley is a true aficionado of the first version, and not merely going through the motions to execute a more marketable update. While this 2013 edition succumbs to a few stock conventions such as the use of dramatic orchestrations to inflate non-crucial surprises, the movie is a top- notch, general consumption chiller. Patrick: Evil Awakens is genuinely scary, rich with gloomy atmosphere and eerie tension, but free of camp, and doesn't insult your intelligence.
