Coma Boy

In order to get a movie in today, I got up and took a shower first thing. Trust me, I needed one. Instead of drying my hair though, I put Patrick Still Lives (1980) in, and watched it while I waited for my hair to dry on its own. I got this post started yesterday, with very little of it done. I wanted the time stamp on it more than anything. I guess I could have picked a different film to end the year with, but I really didn't see the point in it. Some up coming things for everyone, my third year of doing this blog is quickly coming to a close. Instead of doing a year end thing, like I did last year, I have found a film with a birthday theme to it that I will review instead. Hopefully I will have the last trailer for the After Dark films soon. Last time I checked, it still wasn't up on their web site, and I can't find it anywhere else either. Last but not least, there will be another review later on today, posted for today. At the party last night, my friend asked if I had watched a certain movie. It was late, or early in the morning, so I was started to feel pretty tired. But the mention of this film woke me up a little. He gave me the film to watch, so I'm excited. Excited I say!

Patrick Still Lives starts off with Patrick (Gianni Dei) standing by his car that has broken down. We can hear someone else pointing out that someone is coming, so Patrick tries to wave down the approaching car. Instead of stopping, the person throws out a bottle, that hits Patrick in the face. We see him laying on the ground screaming. Next thing we know, he is laying in a bed, now in a coma. I don't know how it went from screaming to coma, but I will go with this. Patrick is now at some sort of vacation resort, off season of course. Other people start to show up, who were invited by a strange letter that talked about their pasts. We have Lyndon (Franco Silva) and Cheryl (Carmen Russo) Kraft, Stella (Mariangela Giordano), David (Paolo Giusti), Peter (John Benedy), Meg (Anna Veneziano), and Patrick's father Professor Herschell (Sacha Pitoëff). Professor Herschell has invited them all there, so to speak, but why? We soon find out that even though Patrick is in a coma, or at least they want us to believe he is, he isn't all that helpless after all. Bodies start to pile up, but how are they being killed?

Patrick Still Lives is sort of a sequel to Patrick. Sort of you ask? Patrick is a film out of Australia, while Patrick Still Lives is a film out of Italy. In an interview with the producer of the film, Gabriele Crisantie, he explains that Patrick did very well in Italy, so they decided to jump into the genre and make their own film. This isn't the first time I have come across a horror film out of Italy that is an unofficial sequel to a film made somewhere else. I don't think you need to watch Patrick in order to pick up on what is going on in this film though. The plot is a little confusing at first, mostly because they don't bother to explain why all these people are showing up at the resort. Eventually they do though, but it is a pretty lame excuse if you ask me. One of these people might have been the person that threw the bottle. They are invited to the resort, so Patrick can have his revenge. Since they don't know which one it was for sure though, best to be safe and just kill them all off. Just one problem with that, Patrick has taken a liking to Meg.

The effects end up being something of a mixed bag. There are some that look pretty cool, and some that look really bad. The deaths are all over the place. Boiled up in a swimming pool, hanged by a hook, rolled up in a car window, and (my personal favorite) death my a fireplace poker, that goes from one end of the body to the next. While the effects weren't always good, they were at least gory. Being a film out of Italy, and being 1980, I guess I can forgive the effects just a little bit. New ways of making effects were just being discovered around this time, and it would take a little while before it was perfected. The acting seemed to be alright. I guess some of the people listed above were known on the international market, while the rest were somewhat known to those in Italy only. There is also an interview with Gianni Dei on the DVD. They try and make it sound like he had a hard part in this film. I had to ask myself though, were they being serious? How hard is it to lay in a bed, and stare off into space? A thing I found interesting in the interviews was the death scene with the poker. From the interview, it was thought up right on the set, and was brought about because the producer had a major fight with the actress. So he wanted an on screen death that he thought might offend her in the worst possible way.

Patrick Still Lives isn't one of the better films to come out of Italy, but it is entertaining to a point. I liked it just enough, truth be told. I was having a hard time figuring out which way I would score it. After a little thinking though, I realized it wasn't so bad after all. It is the only film I can think of, outside of porn movies (not that I would know), where every actress gets naked at some point in the film. I did find the plot to be rather silly, but outside of that, I would say this one is worth a watch. At least once that is.
3 out of 5 I guess there are worse deaths than death by a fire poker