Directed by Jack Sholder also directed Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Hidden, and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies. and Arachnid (a 2001 Spanish horror film but like Hidden).
Written by Bob Hunt
Starring
Michael Nouri played Tom Beck
Kyle MacLachlan played Lloyd Gallagher. Mr. McLachlan also played Paul Atreides in Dune 1984
Claudia Christian played Brenda Lee Van Buren as also starred in Babylon 5. Her role is often mistaken for one in Deep Space Nine.
Music by Michael Convertino
Release date October 20, 1987
Box office $9.7 million
How that ranks is:
1. Beverly Hills Cop II $153, 665,036
2. Platoon $136, 772, 865
3. Fatal Attraction $125, 944, 573
4. The Untouchables $76,270,454
98. The Hidden $9,747,988
The Hidden was considered a success and spawned other scifi films and Hidden II (which wasn’t a success).
Synopsis
Cop detective in LA, Tom Beck, has a nasty case with a suspect who is randomly killing, stealing cars, and robbing a bank. This spree was just for ‘fun,’ as far as the police can tell. The suspect, Jack DeVries, leads them on a wild chase. The police finally stop him, riddling him with bullets, and the bad guy, DeVries, ends up in the hospital on the verge of dying. We learn this crime spree started before he came to Beck’s city.
An FBI agent shows up at the hospital and finds DeVries dead, and Jonathan Miller, a patient dying in the bed next to DeVries, has gotten out of his bed and walked out of the hospital. The audience has seen a transfer from DeVries’s mouth into Mr. Miller’s mouth. It’s a horrid, giant slug with a distinctive head and eyes, giving the impression that it is directing the whole operation.
The FBI agent, Lloyd Gallagher, shows up at the police station, and Detective Beck is required to work with him. Frustrated, Detective Beck runs Mr. Miller and finds his record is solely unpaid parking tickets. Beck boots him out of the police station. Another murder occurs, and when Beck shows up at the crime scene, Gallagher is there. Even though Beck is reluctant, he goes along with Gallagher as they travel from crime spree to dead bodies to crime spree.
There is a great finish. Gallagher rushes into a press conference with a flame thrower and torches a presidential candidate (alien-possessed, of course). Except, wait, one more scene, which I thought was great. Gallagher does one last favor to Beck, which leads to Hidden II.
Data for Discussion
This movie came in at 98th place in the box office take. It was considered a success and has become a cult classic. I enjoyed the pace. The music was of a type I don’t know what to label, but I enjoyed much of it. The selections I didn’t enjoy fit the scene very well and gave me the emotion the scene was calling for. The plot kept you guessing, with some exciting twists.
Excellent chase scenes, with an homage to Death Race 2000, showing the bad guy’s temperament. Points for each kill.
Usually, I steer away from horrors, but when it is accompanied by a good script and the violence is not too gory, I can get into the character’s situation. Often, movies with this level of violence (the camera turning away from the majority of the gore and the bad guy, or guys are the only perpetrators) are called suspense. We just know someone has been killed. I first experienced this in the movie Wait Until Dark 1967 with Audrey Hepburn. It did not have scifi leanings, but the story about a blind woman trying to defend her home from an intruder interested me. Turning the tables on him where her blindness and familiarity with the environment were superior to the bad guy’s. The Hidden was rougher than Wait Until Dark, but the music brought it back down to let us distance ourselves and realize the over-the-top absurdity of the scenes.
Positives
As I said, this was a good script. Reviewers credit the director’s ingenuity with making a low-grade horror film. I disagree. All aspects— direction, script, actors, music, and production—needed to come together to make this a great flick. I enjoyed the surprises and the ability to laugh at how evil our alien was.
Negatives
It was pretty violent. I wouldn’t recommend this if you need help pulling back from that. It also had some pretty explicit sex scenes (for 1987). You didn’t see much of it, and I found Claudia Christian’s portrayal of an alien trying out a female body for the first time hilarious. Most of what I imbibe in scifi is sweet and joyous, so this is a fundamental change and may not be your interest as far as old-fashioned science fiction.
©JM Strasser 2024 All Rights Reserved
Sources
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_(1987_film)
3. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1987/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Christian
5. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001492/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sholder
Illustrations
1. https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w300_and_h450_bestv2/pCoFtULUIebq13EU9glcZjfdC1a.jpg
2. https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Hidden-Kyle-MacLachlan-Lloyd-Gallagher.jpg
3. https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/nZycNNZeQBi7NclMPC2Rr9xmpOd.jpg
