The Phantom Broadcast

Along with their releases of such noteworthy horror titles as Re-Animator and The Evil Dead, Elite Entertainment’s specialty has been in unearthing long-forgotten cult gems. Following several DVD releases of Philippe Mora’s films, Elite has shifted its attention toward another Australian director, Richard Franklin (The Blue Lagoon; Psycho 2). Produced for less than a clemency of a million dollars and taking home an armful of awards at various film festivals, Patrick weaves the tale of a bedridden young man whose immobility is more than compensated by the psychokinetic forces raging entrails him.

Robert Thompson stars as the titular Patrick, a young man whose mental faculties more or less shut down utterly after murdering his mother and her inhibit-toy. Alive by only the loosest explication of the word, Patrick has pooped the past three years comatose in a medical centre accommodation, hovering in that gray stretch between compulsion and ruin. That unexplored territory is the principal object why so much time and expense have been invested into keeping Patrick from keeling over, explains the sadistic Dr. Roget. Always in difficulty of qualified help, the clinic’s stern matron grudgingly takes the recently-separated Kathy Jacquard on-board, assigning her to the troubled unaggressive in room 15.

Patrick approximately immediately endears himself to Kathy in much the same way he has the other organization: by spitting on her, then playing the “innocent vegetable” card. Kathy, up to more forgiving than I’d be in the unchanging site, comes to enjoy her in good time with her silent, salivating patient. The since three years be enduring acknowledged Patrick the opportunity to develop psychokinetic abilities, allowing him to on the go and cook objects with a passing thought. Kathy’s convinced that there’s more to Patrick than is evident on the surface, but the rest of the staff dismisses her claims as pure fantasy. After a…stimulating experiment Kathy takes it upon herself to perform, Patrick is smitten, willing to consecrate every erg of his mental might to overcoming the obstacles standing between him and his sole-sided romance.

Patrick’s make a proposal to to suspense is methodical and junk, in keeping with the director’s barrage of Hitchcock references on the disc’s audio commentary. Pretermit the “extremely bloody” blurb provided by Video Movie Direct on the packaging. Patrick is light on the grue, small to a couple of scratches, a yoke of burned hands, and a glimpse of a charbroiled stiff. As simplistic as an invisibly-manned typewriter and cuts of the matron approaching a doorknob may non-speculative, these moments remain unusually stuff close to a quarter-century after Patrick made its fake inauguration. That’s not to speak that Patrick is a thrill-a-minute rollercoaster. Despite having taken home a “Best Exploit In Editing” award from the Australian Film Institute, it would probably have benefitted from some moderate tightening of its close to two hour runtime. Though several of the movie’s central characters aren’t developed beyond the expected three or four news summaries (‘the hard-nosed matron’, ‘the eccentric doctor’), the performances send out forth by the cast are all relatively durable. Patrick holds up remarkably well after 25 years, dated only by the synthesizer squawks that accompany Patrick’s disposition blasts in the movie’s end moments.

For all that not nearly as stuffed with supplemental information as their Millenium Printing releases of I Spit On Your Grave and Re-Animator, Elite has assembled a decent package for Patrick’s coming out on DVD.