Is Everett de Roche the world's best "half brilliant" writer? His scripts are always full of such imagination and cleverness but they always feel as though they need another draft - or punching up by another writer. I went to a Q and A once with Richard Franklin who was promoting The Visitors and he said as much - from memory he claimed de Roche would do this terrific first draft but never be able to substantially improve upon it.
This film has a very clever idea - a comatose patient who killed his slutty mum (shades of Norman Bates) has the power of telekinesis, falls in love with a nice nurse who looks after him (Susan Penhalgion, who seems like a nice person) and if he can't have her then no one can. This is great because Patrick's motivations are based on love, which drives all the best horror movie protagonists (e.g. Norman Bates) - the telekinesis means he can do things from his hospital bed.
He should have done more, though - Patrick is relatively benign here, he hardly kills anyone. And bits of this feel undercooked: Susan Penhaligon's relationship with her ex Rod Mullinar (is he a nice guy or what?) and the one with Dr Bruce Barry (who seems to be sleazy but is quite sympathetically depicted). The performances of Julia Blake and Robert Helpmann have been called hammy but they are completely appropriate for the tone of this movie, with it's gothic hospital and booming Brian May score.
Penhaligon is a pretty, decent enough lead - it's a shame this couldn't have been played by someone really charismatic. The guy who plays Patrick has a great look and there are lots of spooky sequences, and it is frequently interesting.
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