"He's In A Coma… Yet He Can Kill," promises the tagline for 1978's Patrick, helpfully establishing both the film's irresistible hook and its inherent limitations. A psychological thriller whose bogeyman mostly remains in comatose, Patrick attracted a cult following upon its release, and horror specialist Elite is finally giving it a second life on DVD. Loosely inspired by a true story, the film stars Susan Penhaligon as a nurse who recently separated from her husband, and returns to the workforce by landing a job at a small private hospital. There, she forms a strange psychic bond with the eponymous patient (Robert Thompson), who hovers somewhere between life and death after killing his mother and her lover in the film's unsettling prologue. In spite of repeated assertions that Thompson can't see, hear, or feel anything, Penhaligon remains convinced that he is trying to communicate with her, through spitting and through a Ouija-board-like typewriter apparently hardwired to his mind. As the people in Penhaligon's life begin to suffer strange injuries, droll chief doctor Robert Helpmann attempts to destroy Thompson, only to come face to face with the killer's awesome psychokinetic power. Patrick has a lot going for it: Its characters are developed well beyond fright-flick archetypes, Everett De Roche's script is surprisingly vivid and punchy, the performances are strong, and Richard Franklin's direction is elegant and suspenseful, relying on mood and atmosphere rather than blood and gore. Unfortunately, Patrick has one huge liability in its comatose killer: Everyone's best efforts still can't make the film's heavy even slightly scary. Thompson's unfortunate resemblance to David Hyde Pierce doesn't help matters, nor do the unconvincing special effects, which betray Patrick's ultra-low budget: By the time Thompson is reduced to telepathically hurtling a flower pot across his room, the film has long since passed the thin line separating scary from silly. The Patrick DVD contains a nuts-and-bolts audio commentary that's noteworthy mainly for Franklin's candor in recalling how much he stole from Psycho. The canny appropriations ultimately paid off, however: Largely on the basis of Patrick, Franklin was hired to helm Psycho II.