The Sleeping Menace of Melbourne
Some horror films need a haunted house, a masked killer, or a swamp creature. Patrick needs none of that—it gives you a man in a coma who spends the whole movie not moving a muscle and still manages to be creepier than your uncle’s Facebook feed. Robert Thompson plays the titular Patrick, lying motionless in a hospital bed for 95% of the runtime, yet projecting a menace so palpable you almost want to wheel him into traffic. It’s a masterclass in minimalist horror: a patient who won’t die, a nurse who won’t quit, and psychokinetic powers that won’t let anyone rest.
Susan Penhaligon: The Florence Nightingale Who Knows Better
Susan Penhaligon’s Kathy Jacquard is the kind of nurse horror movies need more of—she’s smart, skeptical, and still willing to take the night shift in a building where the patients might be flying out of windows. She treats Patrick with the clinical politeness you reserve for unstable customers at a hardware store, until he starts sending her typewritten love letters without ever touching the keyboard. It’s the rare horror heroine who reacts to telepathic flirting with a mix of disbelief and “absolutely not.”
Hospital from Hell
The Roget Clinic makes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest look like a wellness retreat. Dr. Roget (Robert Helpmann) runs the place like a research lab crossed with a taxidermy shop, while Matron Cassidy (Julia Blake) radiates the kind of strictness that could curdle milk. It’s a medical institution where the prognosis is always “worse than you think” and the décor suggests no one has dusted since the Crimean War. Franklin’s direction makes every hallway a potential death trap and every lift a waiting coffin.
Telekinesis: The Gift That Keeps on Taking
Patrick’s powers aren’t the polite, nosebleed-inducing kind from Stranger Things. They’re petty, vindictive, and, frankly, needy. He tries to drown Kathy’s would-be suitor at a pool party, traps her ex-husband Ed in an elevator for days, and writes obscene messages through a possessed typewriter like a telepathic troll. Even his romantic overtures are more threat than charm. It’s not Carrie’s prom-night destruction—it’s small-scale domestic terrorism with a pulse rate of zero.
The Creeping, Crawling Pacing That Works
For all its slow-burn pacing, Patrick never feels sluggish. Director Richard Franklin understands that the tension comes from the stillness—the way the camera lingers on Patrick’s blank stare until you start imagining he’s about to blink. The script, by Everett De Roche, drip-feeds the paranormal reveals, building to set pieces that feel earned: a lethal electrocution, a lift-as-prison scenario, and the unforgettable final “corpse lunge” that caused more popcorn spills in 1978 than any alien or slasher.
The Final Ten Minutes Are a Carnival Ride
Franklin famously based Patrick’s climactic leap on a carnival stunt, and it shows. After two hours of near-catalepsy, Patrick’s sudden, full-bodied spring from the bed is a jump scare so cheap and perfect it should be studied in film schools. It’s the moment you realize you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by a movie that knew exactly when to stop whispering and start screaming.
Why This Works So Well
Part of the magic is that Patrick embraces its absurdity without tipping into parody. It’s unabashedly an Ozploitation film—shot with style, peppered with eccentric characters, and free of Hollywood’s polite horror sensibilities. You get sex, science, supernatural menace, and just enough medical malpractice to make the AMA wince. The fact that much of the film hinges on the facial performance of a man who doesn’t move makes it feel almost experimental, like Waiting for Godot with death threats.
The Verdict
Patrick is the rare horror film that understands how to make stillness scary, turning a hospital bed into the most dangerous piece of furniture in Australia. It’s campy in the best way, suspenseful without being dour, and laced with just enough mean streak to make you grin guiltily. Patrick may never say a word, but by the end you’ll swear you heard him loud and clear: Don’t turn your back on me.
