Marty Feldman scared the living shit out of me as a child. A large portion of why has to do with his
unmistakably protuberant eyes. They
looked all but ready to pop out of his skull at any given moment. They were freakish to me. The rest of his facial features were no less
severe: he had a gaunt face, a bulbous nose, and if nothing else, he certainly
looked like the son of Ukrainian immigrants that he was. None of this was lessened by his sense of
humor which could fairly be described as absurd (he did, after all, work with
soon-to-be members of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus on the series At Last the
1948 Show). When I saw the trailer
for In God We Tru$t, my fear only
heightened. It started off with a
closeup of Feldman in direct
address, and I felt like he was staring straight at me. The shot of him walking with an extra set of
legs hidden beneath his monk’s robe put me in mind of some nightmarish
centaur. The equally outlandish Andy Kaufman makeup did nothing to
quell my fear. It wasn’t until much,
much later that the full appeal of Feldman
truly hit me. He was no monster. He was an extremely funny and intelligent
comedian who knew how to best use his unorthodox appearance to bring laughter
to people’s hearts. Today, I count him
as one of my favorite comedic actors of all time. I understand why I, as a child, was unnerved
by the man: people who look far different from us can be unsettling when our
world view is so small. But we learn, we
mature, and we begin to see the world as ludicrously as he sometimes did. Even as I type this, I find myself singing “The
Kangaroo Hop” from The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother in my head.
In much the same way as Feldman’s eyes distressed me, so too
did those of Robert Thompson in
1978’s original Patrick, but there at
least the whole point was to frighten with those unblinking, seemingly dead
orbs (in fact, Thompson’s face was
similar in some aspects to Feldman’s). All this said, I think that Mario Landi’s Patrick Still Lives (aka Patrick
Vive Ancora) misses the boat in this regard. The titular character still stares out at the
audience with lifeless eyes, but Gianni
Dei’s gaze doesn’t have the same impact, largely because his eyes (though a
noticeable attribute) aren’t as exaggerated as Thompson’s. He just looks
like somebody with his eyes stuck open.
Patrick Herschel and his doctor
father (Sacha Pitoëff) are broken
down on the side of the road, when a passing motorist carelessly (or
maliciously, depending) flings some object out of their car window as they pass,
injuring Patrick. Dr. Herschel saves his
son’s life, but the young man lapses into a coma. Several years later (and we are never told
about how much time has passed until much further on in the narrative), five
guests arrive at Dr. Herschel’s Wellness Resort for some off-season
vacationing, but it’s not just their personal demons they’ll need to face.
The original, Australian Patrick was, if my memory serves me correctly (it’s been a few
decades), an effectively creepy, fun Horror film. I know it was made on a low budget, and I
would imagine it was profitable. But
either Landi and company were huge
fans of what I always assumed was merely a cult favorite, or the Richard Franklin film did gangbusters
business in Italy and/or Europe,
because on the list of films one could choose to rip off, I wouldn’t consider Patrick anywhere near the number one
spot. But in the true Italian style of
inimitable imitation, the filmmakers took the basic idea of the film, bound it,
gagged it, and shoved it into a car trunk, sped down a highway in the wrong
lane, and then veered the car right off the road, down a steep embankment. And then blew it the fuck up. Without giving away too much, let’s look a few
examples. Maid Meg (Anna Veneziano) is an extremely bizarre woman who just loves the
vicious German Shepherds kept at the resort.
She also loves telling our lead (?) David Davis (Paolo Giusti) cryptic things about the danger he’s in and then refusing
to expound on any of this. David himself
is about as charismatic and interesting as wet bread, and he seems not in the
slightest bit concerned about the very odd goings-on at the estate (actually,
the most animated character in the film is a secondary one, although the case
could be made that they’re all secondary).
The story (such as it is) makes almost no sense, and the dialogue is
some of the most bizarrely horrid stuff in the history of cinema. To wit:
“It isn’t hard for me to love,” “It’s clear that [character’s] death was
due to a fatality,” "Screaming women make me nervous, “ and “Drugs turned you
into a faggot” (I could go on, but this will start to read like a commercial
for a K-Tel compilation album).
So, what do you do when your
movie is the thinnest of veiled retreads?
You guessed it: ramp up the sleaze.
There are very few scenes in the film that don’t feature graphic nudity of
some variety (male and female). Every
single female character, from the slutty Stella (Mariangela Giordano) to the chaste-ish Lydia (Andrea Belfiore) drops their kit at some point or another, and everyone
sleeps in the buff (also above the sheets).
Adding to this, a couple of the movie’s murders happen while the
characters are nude (or semi-nude), and this adds to the skincrawling
joyousness of the whole affair. There’s even
a psychic rape that left me a bit awestruck.
Underpinning all of this is a rather cynical view of mankind. These aren’t simply innocent victims gathered
together for a slaughter. Each of them
has an unseemly side (with one exception I can recall), and none of them goes
very far out of their way to even attempt redemption. The various backgrounds from which the
characters come are also telling for their breadth. David is a rich, privileged youth, Lyndon
Kraft (Franco Silva) is a member of
the House of Lords, (yeah, I guess this next one may be a SPOILER, but come on,
how could you not see this coming?) Stella is/was a prostitute, and so
forth. This condemnation of society is
not class-based. It is equal opportunity
from the elite to the dross; a microcosm rotten to its core.
Nonetheless, like so many other
films that are no more than hot messes of various consistencies, I have to say
I wound up enjoying Patrick Still Lives
far more than I probably should. The
gore effects are nicely done and imaginative, the women are all attractive, and
the plot is suitably bizarre enough to keep things moving (not at a gallop, to
be sure, but at a decent trot). Plus,
this has one of those headscratcher endings that could be read multiple ways,
so it somehow winds up working better than I could foresee and making up for
some of the movie’s many deficiencies.
If only they could have gotten an actor with more character in his face
to play the titular role.
MVT: I have to give it to
the sleaze factor in the film. It’s
rampant and unashamedly so. You have to
admire that, at least a little bit.
Make or Break: There is a
murder scene that takes place in the kitchen that simply amazed me, not only in
what transpires but also in how explicitly it is all portrayed.
Score: 6.75/10
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