Tweet
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: October 27th, 2020.
Director: Mario Landi
Cast: Sacha Pitoí«ff, Gianni Dei, Mariangela Giordano, Andrea Belifiore, Paoli Giusti, John Benedy, Carmen Russo
Year: 1980
Purchase From Amazon
Patrick Still Lives - Movie Review:
Patrick's back (sort of) and he's horny (definitely)!
When Richard Franklin's 1978 film Patrick proved a box office hit, Mario Landi and company stepped up to the plate to deliver a 'sequel' that took the basic premise of Franklin's picture and ramped up the sex and violence levels to some pretty ridiculous levels.
When the film begins, Patrick (Gianni Dei) and his father, Doctor Herschel (Sacha Pitoí«ff), are the side of the rode trying to fix their car. Another car speeds by and whacks Patrick but good! His old man takes him back to their massive estate and treats him, as well as three other people that are bedridden in this weird little mini-hospital that he has in the bowels of the old building. Patrick does not respond at all, he doesn't talk, he just sort of stares blankly, as do the other patients. It's odd.
A short time after the accident a handful of people that Herschel suspects were involved in the accident that injured Patrick are invited to the estate to a relaxing vacation - in fact, he insists on it, essentially blackmailing them into this. No one really questions this so soon enough exhibitionist Stella (Mariangela Giordano) and her boyfriend Peter (John Benedy), politician Lyndon Cough (Silva) and his gal pal Cheryl (Carmen Russo), who can't seem to figure out how her bra works, and a guy named David (Giusti) are hanging out chugging J&B like it's going out of style and bickering amongst themselves. Meanwhile, Patrick becomes intrigued by his dad's hot new secretary, Lydia (Andrea Belfiore), freaking her out at first and forming some sort of never-explained psychic connection with the poor woman. Oh, and the maid, Meg (Anna Veneziano), just might be getting it on with the dogs Herschel keeps on the property.
Eventually, people start to die. Lyndon Cough is the first one to get it, boiled alive while taking a swim in the pool, but he won't be the last, no, he definitely won't be the last, as Stella's death really is one for the books. Is Patrick really behind all of this? Will he ever figure out who did this to him? It's all pretty messy!
The plot gets lost somewhere along the way but like Landi's earlier Giallo A Venezia (which also starred Gianni Dei and Mariangela Giordano), it hardly matters. The director is concerned less with things like storytelling and more interested in nudity and violence. This one gets seriously sleazy, with poor Ms. Giordano, best known for her immortal turn in Burial Ground where man-mutant Peter Bark bites her breast off, proving quite the glutton for punishment. Vaginal impalement aside, the movie also features psychically induced masturbation, a whole lot of nudity, more J&B product than you can shake a stick at (check out that J&B pitcher at the pool!), frequent used of superimposed eyeballs and a lot of completely unnecessary but very welcome green lighting effects.
The movie is an absolute mess, a total trash fest, but this scuzzy little bastard of a movie is nothing if not entertaining.
Patrick Still Lives - Blu-ray Review:
Patrick Still Lives arrives on region A Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.66.1 widescreen and taking up 22.6GBs of space on the 25GB disc “scanned uncut in 2k from the original negative for the very first time in 40 years.†Despite a warning that shows up on the screen before the feature starts alerting us to discoloration due to element damage, this generally looks solid and offers a nice improvement over the old DVD release that came out via Media Blasters way back when. Yes, there are some scenes where mild discoloration is noticeable but it's pretty mild. The image is reasonably grainy, this was shot on 16mm, but print damage is never a problem, whenever it shows up its mostly just small white specks rather than anything stronger than that. Most of the time the colors look really nice, especially those green hues used throughout the movie, and detail, depth and texture are pretty solid. Some mild compression artifacts show up in a few spots, the pool death being an example, but they aren't a constant.
The only audio track on the disc is a 24-bit Italian language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono mix that comes complete with optional English subtitles. The audio quality is fine. The track is balanced and clean, free of any audible hiss or distortion, and the score has some decent range to it. The subtitles are easy to read and free of any noticeable typos.
The main extra on this disc is an eleven-minute featurette entitled C'est La Vie which is an interview with actor Gianni Dei, who speaks quite candidly about how he got his start in the business, some of his early film roles, how and why he wound up in some of the roles he played, why he quit, his thoughts on this film's cult status, leaving acting for music and more. Dei sadly passed away earlier this year, he comes across in this piece as a genuinely nice guy.
Aside from that we also get a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection.
Patrick Still Lives - The Final Word:
Patrick Still Lives is sleazy, dumb and ridiculous but it's hard not to have a good time with this one if you're in the right mood for it and don't need to take it all that seriously. Severin's uncut Blu-ray edition offers a nice improvement over the previous DVD release and the interview with Dei is a nice addition to the disc. Recommended to those who know what they're getting into!
Click on the images below for full sized Patrick Still Lives Blu-ray screen caps!
