PATRICK STILL LIVES (1980) Review

Directed by: Mario Landi
Written by: Piero Regnoli
Starring: Sacha Pitoeff, Gianni Dei, Mariangela Giordano, Carmen Russo, Paolo Giusti, Franco Silva, John Benedy, Anna Veneziano, Marcel Bozzuffi

Mark Hartley's remake of the ozploitation classic PATRICK is set to have its release next month. In the meantime I thought I'd revisit the original psychic thriller from 1978. But then I remembered that I really didn't fucking like the original at all. It was a good concept but poorly executed and suffered from some pacing problems and didn't have anywhere near enough nudity or gore for my liking. And that's where this film comes in. PATRICK STILL LIVES is the completely unofficial Italian sequel to the original movie and to be honest I really wasn't expecting it to be any good. Oh how fucking wrong I was.

Italian cinema has quite a history of cashing in on popular movies like JAWS and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and DAWN OF THE DEAD and even INDIANA JONES. And although the original PATRICK isn't quite in the same class as the previous movies it looks like somebody thought it would be a great idea to just fucking go for it anyway. That person was director Mario Landi who is also responsible for the sleazy giallo MYSTERY IN VENICE and a whole slew of TV movies and miniseries. And speaking of sleaze this particular movie is full of it. Packed to the motherfucking gills full of the kind of sleaze that only Italian filmmakers seem to be capable of. Which is fucking awesome.

We'll get to the plot (or whatever you want to call the thin excuse to hold the sex and violence together) a little later but for now let's talk flesh. There are a total of 5 females cast in this movie and they all get their gear off at least once each. Tits and ass and bushy vagina are all on show and we even get quite an erotic masturbation scene. That's right, 5 women and you get to see all 5 pairs of their sweater puppies, some of them multiple times. So even if every other aspect of the film is utter shit you've still got some sweet nudity to fall back on. Fortunately the rest of the movie isn't utter shit.

One of the shortcomings (in my opinion) of the original PATRICK was the lack of blood and gore. I know it was supposed to be more of a thriller than a horror but some more violence would have gone a long way. The good news is that this Eurosleaze 'sequel' has more than enough to make up for it. It has a respectable body count and all of the deaths happen in a variety of ways from a man being boiled alive in a swimming pool to a woman being torn apart by very angry German Shepherds. There's also a gloriously excruciating death scene where a woman gets... well I really don't want to spoil it. Let's just say she gets royally fucked up. Emphasis on the fucked.

Ok so I said something about a plot earlier, let's give this a go. First of all I should make it clear that none of the characters in this movie are in any way related to any of the characterd in the original. This does not follow on from the original it is basically a standalone film that takes themes from the original and injects them with sex, violence and awesome. It does however feature a character named Patrick who is in a coma. Patrick is in a coma from having a bottle thrown at his head from a passing car which we get to see at the beginning of the film. His father is a doctor in charge of some kind of medical retreat where 5 guests are staying. Each of the guests has been blackmailed into staying at the clinic by a mysterious letter which notes some hidden crimes from their past. It turns out that the good doctor has been doing some research on the bottle-throwing asshole that put his son in a coma and he has narrowed it down to this small group of people (the 5 guests and his secretary). He has also spent a considerable amount of time building Patrick's psychic powers so that his son can personally dish out his own violent revenge.

PATRICK STILL LIVES also has an impressive original score that sounds suspiciously like Goblin but is actually composer Berto Pisano who has also done music for some great Italian exploitation films like MALABIMBA THE MALICIOUS WHORE and BURIAL GROUND. And there are some nice practical effects as well. With all of the violence and the sometimes ridiculous dialogue ("I usually bang women, not whiskey bottles") and the fact that even when the women wear clothes they like to have their nipples showing PATRICK STILL LIVES is an hour and a half of the finest Italian sleaze. highly recommended.