I have not yet seen the much-heralded documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! – about the Australian grindhouse flicks of the 70s and 80s – but it’s been on my damn queue for what seems like years now. Maybe it’s time to finally get to it, as its director, Mark Hartley, is moving on to the narrative world with a remake of 1978’s psychic-killer chiller PATRICK.
The original PATRICK, from the writer/director team of Richard Franklin and Everett De Roche (ROADGAMES, LINK) has the following plot: After violently murdering his mother and her lover, Patrick (Robert Thompson) lays comatose in a private hospital. When a pretty young nurse (Susan Penhaligon) begins working at the hospital, Patrick tries communicating with her, while others in her life are being hurt and killed in mysterious ways.
Hartley told Fangoria that he plans on shooting sometime this year on a budget around $4 million. “We don’t want to turn Patrick into Freddy Kreuger; we like to think of it as a love story with a body count.” Hartley said. “The great thing about the original was the fact that here’s a guy with unlimited powers, but all he wants to do is use them to manipulate the events in that nurse’s life to make her fall in love with him. So we’ve kept that central premise and really upped the ante.”
Jamie Lee Curtis was in ROADGAMES and NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD…
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