Cult Corner: The Bonkers ‘Patient Seventeen’ Dives Into The World Of Alien Abductions And Implants

When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.

It’s really difficult to write about Patient Seventeen without immediately falling down a conspiracy theory-filled rabbit hole. The alien investigation documentary, which recently hit Netflix, claims that its main subject was abducted by a group of alien gangsters that implanted a device in his leg. The subject also claims that he beat up this group of aliens in order to escape his abduction. If that’s not weird enough, at a later point, another interview subject claims that there is an alien internet and that mankind’s ultimate goal should be to hack into it. There’s a lot to unpack in Patient Seventeen, and very little of it makes complete sense.

However, that seems to be a recurring theme when it comes to the bizarre sub-genre of investigative alien documentaries. Patient Seventeen derives its name from the claim that its main interview subject is the 17th patient that has had an intergalactic foreign object removed from his body. The documentary starts as an investigation into this patient’s claims and an examination of surgeon Dr. Roger Lier’s work, but as the film progresses, it quickly devolves into a wider conversation about the existence of aliens.

There’s really no other way to put it. Patient Seventeen is insane. It’s filled with long segments from interviewed white men who seem more concerned with sounding intelligent than making sense. “Fleshsuit of a living man” is a phrase that is unironically used early on in the documentary before a fairly graphic surgery scene. Sometimes director Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell will highlight certain phrases his subjects say by inserting  black text cards filled with giant white letters. Though it’s phrased as an investigation, the documentary has all the subtly of a YouTube personality trying to make viewers believe that his latest prank is totally real. From the film’s first moments, it’s clear that Patient Seventeen‘s director has already chosen to believe most of his subjects’ allegations, as bonkers as they may be.

That being said, everything I just described is kind of what you want in an alien documentary. Part of the fun of the genre is that these films seem so out there, they’re comically entertaining. And there’s also a sort of fun that comes with letting yourself be carried down a crazy, conspiracy theory-filled rabbit hole. If that’s the sort of watch you’re in the mood for, Patient Seventeen has you covered.

Stream Patient Seventeen on Netflix