(2014) Director Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood, Machete Maidens Unleashed) puts his well-established knowledge of genre convention to work in this mostly effective, if perhaps a bit too serious, remake of a late 1970s Australian horror movie. The titular character is a patient at an experimental hospital - set in the spookiest old house they could find, of course - that treats patients in a persistent vegetative state. A doctor, played by Charles Dance, appears to be working toward nefarious ends along with his daughter and head nurse played by the always welcome Rachel Griffiths. In arrives a soft-hearted new nurse, played by Sharni Vinson, who quickly becomes interested in Patrick - and even becomes a bit obsessed once she learns that Patrick has the power of telekinesis. Eventually the young nurse makes a few key mistakes and unleashes the power of Patrick's depraved mind on the hospital.
Patrick relies heavily on an old-school approach to horror - creaking stairs, creepy old medical implements, people popping up for no good reason other than to give a good scare - and it works for the most part to create a spooky mood and keep the audience jumping. You do have to give yourself over to the movie - you have to ignore some of the sillier aspects and just have a good time. On the downside, while it is worth a watch overall, Hartley doesn't seem to make any effort to twist any genre convention or play with any of the film references he makes. The film is ultimately limited by Hartley's too-slavish devotion to the films he grew up watching. Every bone in this movie's body is old-school. Nevertheless, Hartley does show enough talent to make him worth watching. The question is whether he'll work up the gumption to take his films to another level, or whether he'll forever be content paying homage to his favorites. The orchestral score by Pino Donaggio (who built his career on scoring horror movies in the 70s and 80s) is massively overbearing in the first act and it hurts the film, but once the action gets going it complements well what Hartley is trying to do. Lead Vinson is game here but she doesn't bring any real heat to the role. Griffiths as the spooky head nurse is excellent. Peta Sergeant as another nurse brings some very welcome sexuality to the role and seems to be the one having the most fun (perhaps that's the benefit of being the sexy friend in horror films; the downside, of course, being that a horrible death for the character is a given). Again, worth a view, but not a game-changer. Screened via VOD.
Americathon and U Want Me To Kill Him? after the jump
Americathon
(1979) This movie, intended (I think) as political satire, is neither smart nor funny. Nor is it coherent or even professional. It is the future and America is struggling to repay its debts, so a lender decides to foreclose. The President (John Ritter) decides to hold a telethon to save the country, and enlists Peter Riegert, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard, Meatloaf, Elvis Costello (in what looks like footage intended for something else - was he tricked?), and others. Looks and feels very cheap. Stunningly devoid of even decent gags. I suppose the presence of plenty of TV and music stars from the time (Ritter was at the height of his Three's Company fame) attests to their personal affection for director Neal Israel, which must have been immense for them to embarrass themselves with this garbage. Harvey Korman, as a drug-addled variety show host, is a pro and works hard to wring a chuckle out of the material, but pretty much everyone else looks unhappy to have been roped into this (Peter Riegert's performance is about as energetic as a hostage video). Ritter's talents are completely wasted (alas, something of a career theme). Throw in some homophobic and racist material and you have the cherries on top of a really, really bad film. Screened via Warner Archive Instant.
U Want Me 2 Kill Him?
(2014) I've already complained recently about being lied to by a filmmaker in order to articifially sustain a mystery, so I'm not going to go at it again in full here. I'm willing to accept the fiction of being inside of a character's head and seeing his fantasies as he sees them as long as the film is consistent and made from that character's perspective. But you can't have it both ways. This film tries to do just that. This could have been a very interesting story about one teenager's internet obsession or about a dark friendship between two boys as it is warped by the internet, but instead the filmmakers didn't trust the characters and tried to create a clever (too clever by half) noir mystery. The filmmakers are too interested in building a twist ending, and not enough in building characters (any intelligent person could guess that a twist is coming, the question is what it will be - but since the film lies to us, we can't figure that out). The ending of the film suggests that the filmmakers believed they had crafted a very profound exploration of the psyches and sexualities of two boys, but one of those characters is a complete cipher (thanks to the filmmakers' failures to recognize the real story here, or perhaps their fear of the homoerotic implications of that story) and the other character we're not given the right tools to fully understand. There are times when this movie gets interesting, but ultimately the whole thing never comes together and is a lost opportunity. Screened in the theater.
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