Wednesday, June 6, 2012

"Patrick vive ancora"(1980)d/Mario Landi

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Tonight's review is an unofficial Italian sequel to Sitges award-winning Australian director Richard Franklin's 1978 cult classic film, Patrick, dealing with a young comatose man who uses psychokinetic powers to influence his nurse to fall in love with him, killing anyone who stands in his way.Italians must've loved Patrick, a film they'd re-score with Argento soundtrack regulars, Goblin, before going the familiar quick buck cash-in formula/ route with the ahem, tribute, as directed by Mario Landi, of  Giallo a Venezia(1979) infamy, and produced by Gabriele Crisanti, who you've probably been trying to forget from such high brow genre experiences as Andrea Bianchi's Le notti del terrore(1981) and Mario Bianchi's La bimba di Satana(1982).Ancora is a head-scratchingly silly rip-off, piled high with extreme sleaze, cleavage-heavy reaction shots, and cheap gore, low on production values and continuity, but high on unintentional laughs and over-the-top shocks.Landi even throws in a tinge of stylistic Argento-esque flair, with his use of purple and green lighting whenever Patrick's cranial power is in use, that a neo-expressionist like Enzo Cucchi might momentarily admire if had he seen it, and perhaps briefly forgotten what sick mutt of a movie he was watching in the first place. In other words, a foolproof companion to that rainy mid-week movie night for you and your genre nut intimates, all of which, might well be bowled the fuck over by the time this exploitatively nasty little number comes to a close, yourself included.
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"...è paralizzato anche il tuo cazzo?Anche se i strofinare la mia figa sulla spalliera del letto?"
We first see Patrick(Gianni Dei) as he and his father, a professor named Herschel(Sascha Pitoeff), have broken down just south of Motuo County, China, where Patrick's attempts to flag down a passing car for roadside assistance earn him a chucked bottle upside his mush for his troubles.Next, in the operating theater, we see a surgeon in a mad dash to save the young man's life.Yeah, from that bottle in the face I just mentioned, as likely as that fucking sounds.The emergency surgery is successful, if by 'successful' you really meant 'left in a vegetative comatose state for an indefinite amount of time'.I guess the upside would be the mysterious psychokinetic powers Patrick inexplicably develops, the mental flame fanned by Herschell's other patients at his private clinic(you know, the one from Burial Ground? ).Meanwhile, the professor has somehow discovered the identities of six possible vessel-heaving suspects, inviting them all to his clinic for a few days that may or may not include violent retribution at the murderous mind of his soporose son.That they're all repugnant commoners, booze-soaked and belligerent, and ready to dash off their gear and prance around nude-ski's at the drop of a hat only helps the audience finetune it's growing hatred for the disposable characters and groove on the horrible, berserk death they're all about to eat for supper...
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Peter North ha visto alcuni giorni migliori.
First to go is a politician named Cough, who Patrick abruptly boils alive while he goes for a late night swim in the pool; his blistery corpse explained away by Herschell to the other guests as 'alcoholism-related'("Were you swimming in the moonshine still again, Cough?") and these bourgeois clodplates buy it.Davis is next, neck-hooked and hung over a well, before being discovered by Stella(Mariangela Giordano), who later discovers a flayed cat in the fridge, and later still, a medical pole in her vagina(Understandably, she says "No! No!" to the concept) that peskily impales her before exiting out her mouth.Next, Patrick uses his mental abilities for more conventional ends: forcing Lidya the secretary to strip nude and masturbate for him against her will.That she later ends up among those suspected of flinging flagon only adds to the complexity of the father and son's vengeance-fueled dilemma that is wholely ignored by Landi and co.Bel lavoro, ragazzi!A broad loses her dome to a car window-guillotine, while another servant gets her throat bitten out by her Shepalutes.Does any of this get Patrick any closer to the true identity of the bottle-throwing bastard that has left him in such a low somnambulistic state?Of course it doesn't, but it makes for a hilariously twisted  ninety-two, if you know what I'm saying here.
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"Minchia! Che un palo!"
Besides tonight's feature, which would be his last, and the aforementioned Giallo, Landi mostly worked on television projects, directing 1979's Supersexymarket and 1980's Il viziaccio, both with genre reg Femi Benussi, before passing away in 1992.Dei, who has appeared in things like Angelo Pannacciò's Sex of the Witch(1973), La settima tomba(1965), and Delitti(1987), also earned a credit in Landi's Giallo, as well.Crisanti's wife, Mariangela Giordano has had a prolific film career spanning over fifty years, with many genre credits to her name, such as Malabimba(1979), Giallo a Venezia(1979),  Le notti del terrore(1981), and Jesus Franco's Killer Barbys(1996), to list just a few.Besides his memorable turn in Argento's Inferno(1980), you can also catch the late Sacha Pitoeff in things like Donkey Skin(1970) opposite the delicious Delphine Seyrig, Anastasia(1956), and 1968's The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl(1968).On the scale, Ancora merits an anemic single Wop, though it's appeal to fans of genre-sleaze of the lowest order is undeniable, indeed.Approach accordingly...
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Un altro cliente soddisfatto.
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