Patrick
(Robert Thompson) catches his mom screwing a guy in her bathtub and
electrocutes them. After that, he slips
into a coma for many years. He’s
admitted to a sketchy hospital where the nutty doctor (Robert Helpmann) performs
all sorts of twisted experiments on him.
His new nurse Kathy (Susan Penhaligon) takes a shine to the unresponsive
Patrick, but all the poor dope can do is spit in her face. Patrick begins to get feelings for Kathy too
and he begins to communicate with her telepathically (telePatrickly?) through
her typewriter. Pretty soon, people
close to her start dying. Is Patrick
getting jealous? Will Kathy be next?
Director
Richard Franklin apes Hitchcock when he can (this was his dry-run for Psycho
2), especially during the scenes where people climb stairs. Unlike Hitchcock, he doesn’t have much of a
knack for pacing. The plot drags its
feet throughout much of the running time and when something does happen, it’s
not all that scary or anything. The only
real reason you hang in there as long as you do is because of Penhaligon’s fine
performance.
Patrick
runs a long 108 minutes and it’s awfully slow going for the most part. If Franklin wanted to keep things crackling,
the film needed a nip here and a tuck there, especially seeing as the best
stuff is weighted towards the final reel.
It does have at least one memorable jump scare, but that’s not quite
enough to hang an entire movie on.
AKA: Coma.
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