Patrick



AKA: Patrick: Evil Awakens

Kathy has just started a new job at an isolated psychiatric clinic run by the mysterious and controversial Dr. Roget. Roget’s specialty involves working with comatose patients, in the hopes of studying them so that he can one day find a way to cure their affliction. His prize patient appears to be Patrick, a comatose young man that Roget seems to believe is his greatest hope to prove his theories correct. Though she’s not supposed to get close to patients, Kathy soon develops great sympathy for Patrick after witnessing some of the horrific testing conducted on him by Roget and his staff. Kathy wants to find some way to help the poor boy, and is pleased when she realizes she’s found a way to communicate with him. But Patrick is quick to tell her he doesn’t need her help… he wants revenge.

And he’s perfectly capable of getting it too. Because though Dr. Roget’s experiments may have failed to grant Patrick mobility, they’ve worked profoundly well in other ways, giving him an incredible level of psychic and telekinetic ability. At first, Kathy seems perfectly fine with letting him get his little bit of well deserved payback. But she quickly changes her tune when she realizes that Patrick has become dangerously obsessed with her, and is willing to hurt anyone who he thinks is going to come between him and his perceived relationship with her.


Dude has problems, is what I’m getting at.

Patrick is a 2013 Australian supernatural horror film, and is a remake of a 1978 film of the same name. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the original before, because before I even watched the movie the plot already sounded very familiar. But it’s been a long while, so I can’t really remember enough to really compare the two film’s too much, beyond confirming that the plots seem to be pretty faithful to one another, and that the updated story moves much faster. Because one thing I do remember thinking is that the original felt a bit too long, and now the remake clocks in at a much more manageable 96 minutes. Which I can appreciate, because despite what Hollywood seems to be suggesting recently, not every film needs to be 2+ hours long. (Dear filmmakers, please learn to sum-up and edit properly. Thank you.)

One rather interesting thing I’ve since learned about the film is that it’s one of the out-liner remakes that bucks the usual remake trend, by being one of the few that seems to be rated higher than its source material, garnering a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to the 42% the original received. Which I personally found very surprising, because while the remake is a fine little horror film, I actually thought it was a lot more “meh” than those ratings would otherwise suggest.


Kinda hoped you’d be a bit more engaging, honestly.

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to things like the technical aspects or production values, the movie is top-notch. The atmosphere is excellent, filled with dark, gothic, claustrophobic corridors, creepy lighting, and even creepier visuals and sounds to match. It’s great. It sounds great. It looks great. I love the vibe. You almost feel like you’ve been transported to some kind of Victorian setting, rather than the era of supped-up digital cars and cell phones. And beyond maybe a hiccup or two, I can’t complain too much about the acting from Sharni Vinson, Rachel Griffiths, and Charles Dance either (though Dance needs more practice when it comes to properly conveying “terrified screaming.” I wasn’t buying that for a second.) So at least on that front the film is stellar. 

The main problem I have with the movie is not so much the story (which is my usual hang-up), but rather how the story is conveyed. The plot itself is fine and I like it quite a bit, even though I feel like parts of it are rather predictable (though I admit this may in part be due to me having already seen the original.) Much of the film just feels…jumpy, especially much of the first half. The movie seems content to throw a bunch of quick, odd scenes at you in succession, and though the film’s final revelation and conclusion address all these bizarre instances, they never feel all that well interwoven. More like random snippets that are just meant to be creepy. The film does remedy this in the second half as we learn more about what’s really going on in the asylum, but the lack of flow in the first half does make the movie feel a little disjointed.



On top of that, beyond the film’s effective unsettling atmosphere, the “scares” in this movie end up just being, well, rather lame, unfortunately. The poor film is just riddled with an excessive amount of unnecessary jump scares, which 1) just feels lazy, and 2) are all very foreseeable and aren’t really all that well implemented to begin with. I mean, one or two of these “jumps” most movies can get away with, but 5-6+ is really pushing it, to the point where it feels like the filmmakers had little to no faith in their own movie, or just…couldn’t come up with anything else to do? I don’t know.


I mean, I kinda understand the underlying desire to freak Dance the hell out, but ya’ll need to reign yourselves in.

Yeah, so, that’s Patrick and it’s just… fine? I mean, it looks great and has some great acting and awesome atmosphere. But the scares feel forced, parts of the plot often feel jumbled, and a lot of the story is very predictable. Hell, even the special effects don’t rate anywhere above a “meh.” Seeing this does make me really wanna go back now and watch the first one again just to have a more detailed idea of what was changed between the two films, but I can’t say I’m all that impressed by the end product here. At least not 73% impressed. I would have thought the CGI snobs would have knocked that score down by at least 10 points. But then again, I would have also thought the original would have garnered something higher than a mere 42% on Rotten Tomatoes too, so what the hell do I know. It’s just a reminder of why I don’t give out number ratings. They feel too arbitrary to me. But hey, if you like psychological horror, then this one isn’t too bad for a quick watch. Just don’t expect to walk away too impressed by it.

Patrick is available on a variety of streaming services.

Patrick is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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