Patrick
Patrick is a 1978 film from Australia, directed by Richard Franklin, running 96 minutes. reelscum files it under Ozploitation.
- Year
- 1978 · 1970s films
- Country
- Australia
- Runtime
- 96 min
- Director
- Richard Franklin
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (47/100)
Defined in the glossary: Ozploitation
A man in a coma does telekinesis. Better than that sentence implies.
A comatose young man with lethal telekinetic powers becomes obsessed with his nurse, and the film wrings genuine menace out of a villain who never moves or speaks. Richard Franklin, a Hitchcock devotee, directs it as a controlled psychological thriller rather than a gore piece.
The premise sounds ridiculous and the execution is anything but; the horror is entirely in what the motionless Patrick makes happen around him. It was a big international hit for the Ozploitation boom and spawned an Italian knock-off.
Smarter and more restrained than its logline suggests, and quietly influential.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- Cult films and the audiences that make them
Cult status arrives after release, through late-night television, midnight bookings and VHS trade, as The Brainiac, Walking Tall and Patrick each show.
- Ozploitation: the Australian genre boom, 1971 to 1986
An adults-only certificate, a tax loophole, and a Melbourne doctor who knew what happens to bodies at speed. Australia's fifteen years of cheap, mean, brilliant genre film.
The cycle in depth
- Wake in Fright is not an exploitation film
It was lost for thirty years, found in a bin marked 'for destruction', and it is the best thing on this site.
On these lists
- Essential Ozploitation
Australia spent fifteen years making films about the country trying to kill you. These are the ones that meant it.
Filed alongside
Long Weekend
A couple litter, and Australia decides to kill them. Excellent.
Stone
Australia's outlaw-biker scripture. Mad Max drank from this tank.
Dead End Drive-In
A drive-in turned into an internment camp. The satire is not subtle.
Fair Game
A woman alone at an outback wildlife reserve is hunted by three kangaroo poachers. Lean and nasty.
Thirst
A secret society farms humans for blood. Ozploitation does vampires as corporate agribusiness.
The Man from Hong Kong
Jimmy Wang Yu wrecks Sydney, with hang-gliding and a man actually on fire. Peak crossover.
Razorback
A giant pig film shot like a perfume ad. Somehow works.
Turkey Shoot
The budget vanished mid-shoot and they kept going. Chaotic, mean, fun.
Road Games
Rear Window in a truck, with Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Cars That Ate Paris
Peter Weir's debut. A town that farms car crashes. Very strange.
Snapshot
A young model is stalked after a nude shoot. A slow-burn Australian thriller with a real sense of dread.
Next of Kin
A slow-burn gothic in a nursing home. Much better than its obscurity suggests.