DRIVEN SATURDAY

DRIVEN SATURDAY

Toddler Terror

by

Edouard Dauphin

Some people thought he was crazy,

He seemed to be deaf, dumb and blind,

But they hadn’t figured on his sixth sense— -

The power of Patrick’s mind.

Oh yeah? So who is Patrick? Well, Patrick is what used to be referred to in polite circles as a vegetable. Suffering from massive damage to the cerebral cortex, he is described by one doctor as “160 pounds of limp meat hanging from a catatonic brain.”

No, Patrick isn’t an alias for Ian Dury. He’s the title character in Patrick, latest of the psychokinesis movies spawned by Carrie, The Fury and others. You remember psychokinesis: an otherwise dull mind moves things around the room by the power of suggestion. It’s how Studio 54’s owner got his start.

Shot in Australia where the chief pastimes are sodomizing emus and draining 33-ounce cans of Foster lager, Patrick boasts a fine if inanimate performance by Robert Thompson who, in bedridden, bug-eyed fashion, gives new meaning to the word turnip. He deserves credit. It’s not easy keeping your body motionless and staring stupidly into space. Ask Lou Reed. He’s been doing that dijpng his daytime hours for twelve years now.

Patrick’s dedicated nurse is played by a young Aussie beauty with the unlikely name of Susan Penhaligon. With her bedside manner, she can strap the Dauphin down and attach electrodes to his brain any time she wants.

Patrick’s brain damage resulted from a little stunt he pulled one day after finding his mum playing Rubber Ducky with a naked man in the bathtub. Jealous and enraged, Patrick tossed an electric heater into the bath water. The resultant explosion plastered the lovers all over the ceiling and probably raised their Australian Electric bill considerably.

“Disease, like God, moves in mysterious ways,” says the head nurse, who hastaken a particular disliking to Patrick. She is later electrocuted in the hospital basement which serves her right for saying lines like that as if they ■ meant something.

See Patrick. He may look like a parsnip, but he’s a peach.

When you hate children as much as I do, a film like The Brood, in whiqh a band of mutant, unearthly toddlers goes on a savage rampage, has to warm the cockles of your murderous heart r

Lerised in scenic Toronto, The Brood is directed by David Cronenberg, who once had a superb notion-of putting porno star Marilyn Chambers into a film about rabies. It was a good flick, but people weren’t exactly foaming at the mouth to see it.

The Brood should fare better. A low budget shlocker, it starts off somnambulistically but builds earnestly to a last reel that had veteran Times Square patrons closing their eyes and tossing up their Jujyfruits onto their laps.

Art Hindle, bland and awful in the remake of Body Snatchers, plays the father of a Six-year-old and the estranged hubby of Samantha Eggar, a lady ripe for the funny farm. Naturally, she’s in a therapy group called (are you ready?) Psychoplasmics. She’d have been better off joining the Plasmatics.

Leader of the group is Oliver Reed, who gets to overact, Overbreathe, overexhale, overstare, overwalk, oversit., .in short, a typical Oliver Reed performance-. Someone ought to tell this bozo less is better— about a ton of less . '

The brood me^ns business. They snuff out an alcoholic grandma by bashing her head in with hammers. The terror-minded tykes then turn their attention to an equally boozed-out senior citizen, the grandma’s husband, who is only in town for the wake. He gets bludgeoned to death for his troubles and never gets to use the second half of his airline ticket. That’s truly Fly Now, Pay Later.

Guess who controls the brood’s homicidal impulses? Between them, Oliver and Samantha seem to have the brats pretty much in hand— until youth decides to have its Say.

See The Brood ’cause these kids are alright.

Postscript: The Amity ville Horror is a horror. Though it’s been raking in the bucks at the box office, this is nothing more than an A film .trying to pass as a B movie. Burdened down with the non-acting likes of James Brolin, MargotKidder and Rod Steiger, it’s the tale of a family that buys a suburban house that’s possessed by demonic spirits. The plot goes nowhere, the special effects are unspecial and you hate the leads so much, you root for the house. The film’s ad copy Says “For God’s Sake, Get Out!” Good advice.