Directed by Mario Landi
Written by Piero Regnoli
Starring:
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Sacha Pitoëff as Dr. Herschel
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Gianni Dei as Patrick Herschel
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Mariangela Giordano as Stella Randolph
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Carmen Russo as Cheryl Kraft
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Paolo Giusti as David Davis
Rating: 
Right after watching Richard Franklin’s psychokinetic horror – the 70’s Ozploitation cult classic Patrick – I was looking forward to watching the unauthorized trashy Italian sequel directed by Mario Landi. While I enjoyed the deadly metaphysics of Richard Franklin’s film and found it absurdly inventive, I still can’t quite identify where its so-called genre classic status comes from. It’s sizzling and taut as a thriller, but its exploitation scenario always seemed inhibited to me. Of course, it had to be the tacky stylings of the Italian filmmakers that pushed Patrick’s cult status into the sleaze realm. The reputation of this unofficial sequel (or remake) is infamous, certainly outside the gutter culture of Euro-sleaze junkies, but by their standards, I think we can all agree that being infamous makes for great cinema.
Much has been said about Patrick Still Lives, that “it is one of the sleaziest Italian films ever made” and that “it is one of the most shameless unofficial sequels ever produced by Italians”. Ripping off Anglo-Saxon classics was pretty much an entrenched tradition in the Italian exploitation film industry, with Claudio Fraggaso and Bruno Mattei as the quintessential rip-off filmmakers – actually I’m shocked that this film wasn’t made by the sleazeball Italian dynamic duo. With all of this in mind, I was hoping that Patrick Still Lives would live up to its inglorious obloquy. And now that I’ve finally gotten to taste the unholy insanity that is Patrick Still Lives, I’m beyond thrilled to report that it does live up to all those claims that at first glance might seem hyperbolic. There is no hyperbole in any of those remarks, in fact I think they are extremely polite and inapt attempts to encapsulate the gnarly porno nonsense contained in this film. It’s as if Patrick Still Lives serves as a demo of the Italian exploitation genre, the ne plus ultra of Italian filmmaking hallmarks. The most Italian of all Italian exploitation movies.
I mean, the movie itself has nothing to do with the psychosexual motifs explored in Patrick, let’s say Patrick is just an excuse for the filmmakers of this pseudo sequel to stage a bunch of naked women in a gratuitous parade of sexual violence, that’s all. And TV pioneer Italian director Mario Landi displays neither bashfulness nor decorum, just crassness and bravado, to make depravity something so damn fun to behold. I expected nothing less from the guy who made Giallo in Venice -one of the trashiest gialli ever made-, a film that shares much of its harsh sleaze with Patrick Still Lives. So, if you’ve had the pleasure of watching Landi’s revolting giallo, you’ll find it fairly easy to grasp what this is all about. The oddball cheap and nasty stylings come unmistakably from Mario Landi, who has only two horror films to his credit, this one and Giallo in Venice. The prestigious Italian critics loathed him and certainly the intellectuals criticized him; and more than likely the conservative factions saw in his films a threat to the youth. Be that as it may, with these two films, director Mario Landi in my estimation showed the fearlessness to pursue Italian exploitation to a never-before-seen degree. And Patrick Still Lives further proves that when it was a matter of Euro sleaze, Italian moviemakers were the incontrovertible masters of the genre, they were just the cream of the crop within the Euro genre film scene.
I adored this film for several reasons, but if I had to select just one it would be for its very nonchalant approach to storytelling – or at any rate, employing incongruity as an integral component of storytelling. This is not only cinematic illogicality being as Italian as it can be, it is the paragon of utter Italian schlock. The lousy prose that pervades the storyline of the screenplay penned by Piero Regnoli never intends to set up characters or a story, nor does it have the decency to provide a framework, it is just a dramatization of sexed up frolics played out in a melodrama for perverts. The “story” opens abruptly with Patrick (Gianni Dei) on the roadside and the horrific mishap that leaves him in a comatose state. Afterwards, maybe years later (?) – by the way, the movie doesn’t really explain anything, everything just happens – Patrick, who is completely immobilized, is attended by his father, Dr. Herschel (Sacha Pitoëff), in the grand villa he owns. This is the place where the doctor summons a group of capricious bourgeois to vacation. Why were they all invited there? What dark intentions does the doctor conceal behind this suspicious invitation? By means of clichés and platitudinous proceedings, these questions are promptly resolved. Nevertheless, I think it is fairly easy to infer that all of them will fall prey to Patrick, who, after the tragedy that left him bedridden, acquired telekinetic powers.
The film purports to be a sort of metaphysical slasher, but the abrasive splatter violence takes its sweet time to show up as well as the highlights are saved for the closing moments. We’re dealing with a slow burner, but one that isn’t very adept at it. But don’t fret about that, the plot instead of mounting intrigue or suspense to lead up to its soaring apotheosis like any other movie made by rational people would, the irrational filmmakers of Patrick Still Lives keep you busy with a steamy kind of melodrama. If watching topless Mariangela Giordano wrestling with an equally stripped Carmen Russo in the middle of a fancy supper doesn’t hold your interest, then this isn’t the movie for you. But if that’s your cup of tea, let me tell you, you’re in for a real treat, this is the picture about that. An old-fashioned villa as a setting for racy bickering by a slew of horny characters – though no one is hornier than comatose Patrick, who I believe has a much better sex life than anyone I’ve ever met. The inconsequential events proceed via hysteria and tomfoolery, lulling us into a tawdry exploration of wanton depravity that in the hands of a director like Mario Landi grows into something truly luscious.
After all the soap opera theatrics set up absolutely zilch plot-wise, the profane atmosphere smoothly morphs into full-blown sexual brutality. And I don’t mean just any kind of sexual violence. The porno set pieces of Patrick Still lives scintillates in authenticity, leading you to believe that you are actually witnessing the sickest Italian movie of all time. The edgy silliness that haunts its filmmaking is redeemed by the sheer bravado displayed throughout the delirious violent porn imagery assaulting the boundaries of the smutty mise-en-scène. The shapely Mariangela Giordano, who also starred in Giallo in Venice (also known for the nunsploitation film Malabimba), performs the most viciously graphic sequence in the entire film. The unspeakably vile rape scene involving a poker is truly iconic and unforgettable. Sleazeball Patrick with his telekinetic strengths sexually assaults Mariangela’s character using a poker, and Mario Landi orchestrates this segment with unpardonable cruelty. Years later the actress regretted starring in that coital stunt, which goes far beyond the scope of pornography. It seems that what Giallo in Venice and this film have in common, apart from the undeniable salaciousness, is that they both have a deranged fixation with sexual penetration using sharp pointy objects. Filthy stuff indeed, but to deny the hardcore power of this sleazy showpiece would be puritanical conceit and sanctimonious incredulity, because there is an artistry behind all this sensational execution, and the sooner you acknowledge it the more rewarding it will be to behold it.
The ever-present extreme lechery embedded in the panoply of naked bodies sonically beautified by the wacky score provided by the great Berto Pisano is what distinguishes this lurid affair from the slew of lurid affairs amassed in the most prolific era of exploitation cinema. While everything you see here is pure grindhouse fare for any genre connoisseur, there’s something about the outré proceedings that just strikes a different chord. Having bare flesh walking around for the whole bloody movie adds an aura of impropriety that few films possess and coupled with the fact that all that flashy female nudity winds up drenched in blood in the most erotically nasty fashion also infuses some extra eccentricity into its freewheeling and ribald outlook.
I don’t really know what makes this film stand out other than its bits of mean-spirited slasher porn. Maybe it’s me overvaluing schlock I dearly adore for the wrong reasons, or maybe it’s just me doing justice to this little-discussed Italian exploitation flick. Whether it’s the former or the latter, Patrick Still Lives delivers what every exploitation film is designed to deliver, and it’s not in the least scared to do what it’s intended to do; rather, it readily embraces its inevitable immorality and delves into the kinkiness of its filmmaking with such chutzpah that the faults are construed more as masterstrokes. Economical, lowbrow, misogynistic, and pointlessly sordid, but its coolly picturesque pornography defies all political incorrectness ever known to man and elevates it to the highest echelon of Italian exploitation. Richard Franklin’s Patrick may have the status of an Ozploitation classic, but Mario Landi’s Patrick Still Lives is the schlocky exploitation flick to end all schlocky exploitation flicks. I absolutely unreservedly love this film, and I mean that unapologetically.