Patrick: Evil Awakens (D+)

Everyone should have a living will. Srsly.

The fact that Charles Dance was performing in Patrick: Evil Awakens was the prime reason I decided to take a gamble on the film. If you're familiar with Dance, you'll know he plays Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones. He's been in some of my other favorites, such as the much-maligned Alien 3 and Last Action Hero (one of my very guilty pleasures). The guy's a great character actor, and his performance in Patrick: Evil Awakens is no less genuine than any other movie I've seen him in.

With all that out of the way, I have to admit that Patrick: Evil Awakens had me scratching my head. Did it want to be campy? Did it want to be serious? Was that thick layer of cheese intentional, or was it put there on accident by a production crew that didn't really know what they wanted to do? To his benefit, Dance plays the part of Doctor Roget completely straight, with no attempts at camp. As for the cheese, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it must have been intended.

The plot of Patrick: Evil Awakens revolves around Kathy Jacquard (Sharni Vinson), a nurse with a struggling marriage who applies for a job at a small psychiatric clinic that specializes in caring for brain dead patients. The physician who runs the facility, Doctor Roget (Dance), is supposedly performing cutting edge research to restore brain function in his patients. The other two employees are Matron Cassidy (Rachel Griffiths), who takes care of administrative duties and keeps the nurses in line, and the spunky Nurse Williams (Peta Sergeant), who befriends Kathy and shows her around town.

Doctor Roget's prize patient is the titular character, Patrick (Jackson Gallagher). Patrick's origins are a mystery to Kathy, though you can tell there's something going on behind the scenes between Patrick, Roget, and Matron Cassidy. Kathy, who's expected to assist Roget when he "treats" Patrick, becomes appalled at the methods the good doctor employs. She goes along with it until she finds she is able to communicate with Patrick, at first through a simple "once for 'no,' twice for 'yes'" system. Later, their method of conversing becomes somewhat more sophisticated... but you'll have to watch the movie to learn the details.

Kathy shares a moment (one of many) with Patrick.

Needless to say, Patrick is a lot more than he seems to be. As he grows more attached to Kathy, bad things begin to happen to anyone who is close to her. Matters get worse as time goes by, and Kathy is torn between her desire to leave her job or stay in an attempt to make sure Patrick is no longer subjected to Dr. Roget's experiments. The film is resolved in the occasionally tense climax, though the film's ending suggests that things aren't as clean cut as you might have been led to believe.

Overall, I wanted to like the movie. I nearly shut it off after the opening scene, as the cheese factor was somewhat elevated and I suspected the rest of the movie would be much the same. My thoughts turned to Charles Dance, however, and once he appeared on screen I decided to stick with it and give it a chance.

Perhaps my biggest complaint about the movie, outside of the cheese factor, was the score. The accompanying music was so loud, so overwrought, and so shrill at times, it made me cringe. There was nothing subtle about it. It was as if even the least-creepy revelations, when partnered with this cacophonous music, were supposed to scare me out of my wits. Not so, as annoyance trumps fright pretty much every single time.

Don't let Matron Cassidy catch you slacking off.

About the cheese I keep mentioning: It's there in droves. The thing is, Patrick: Evil Awakens isn't constantly cheesy or campy. Instead, it picks times to be cheesy that almost always feel inappropriate given the context. For instance, there's a part involving an individual and an elevator shaft, and it's a pretty tense moment. And then, WHAM! It's like someone's suddenly doused the movie with the contents of a fondue pot. I found myself laughing at some of this stuff, but not in a good way.

Despite the movie's flaws, the cast did a really good job. Dance plays an excellent villain, and I particularly enjoyed Peta Sergeant as the promiscuous Nurse Williams and Griffiths as Matron Cassidy. Most of the supporting cast is pretty good, too. There were some cringe-worthy moments, though, including one or two Vader "Nooooooooo!"'s. Those sorts of things always feel somewhat artificial to me, depending on how they're done.

As for effects, there's a good bit of practical gore mixed with some very obvious CGI set pieces. The quality of these effects is fine, but many of them are really over the top which only adds to the cheese factor.

Was it scary? Sort of, I guess. There are some creepy moments, and the setting--a hospital for brain dead patients who just sort of lie there and occasionally do things--contributes to these occasionally eerie sequences. The frights are often offset by camp, though, which (in my case) lessens the immersion for me, bringing me out of the movie and into the realm of, "Did that really happen?"

Better to pull the plug than wind up in Doctor Roget's clinic.

I'm conflicted about this one, make no mistakes about it. My gut wants to be brutal with my final rating, but my brain wants to give some credit for the things that Patrick: Evil Awakens got right. At the end of the day, I think I need to go with my gut on this one. Other viewers are certain to have different opinions, and that's totally fine. If cheesy horror is your cup of tea, you'll probably like Patrick: Evil Awakens. If you really like horrible horror scores, then this movie is pretty much solid gold. If you're interested in a more or less consistent fright film, though, you're probably better off watching something else.

Note: Patrick: Evil Awakens is a remake of another Australian film from 1978, Patrick (with no colon). The plot seems similar enough, but I wonder if the original is any better than the remake. It seems that remakes aren't just for American movie-makers these days.