THE HIDDEN
Altairians are a filthy people indeed
I first saw this movie on afternoon TV with my father. He thought it was fun. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen on afternoon TV in my life.
It's hard to get rid of, it looks like a maggot with tentacles, and it wants to slide down your throat. No, it's not Michael Jackson, little boy - it's an alien organism that's come to earth for no apparent reason other than to steal fast cars, shoot people up and listen to some great tunes (like Concrete Blonde, with even more songs from their first album than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). Michael Nouri plays an L.A. cop who has to track it down, but has no idea what's going on, and Kyle McLachlan plays an FBI agent who knows more than he's telling.
The Hidden opens up with what has to be my all-time favorite car chase: it throws in everything, the old guy in the wheelchair, the two guys carrying the pane of glass, the police blockade, the bumps in the road big enough to make the cars jump, the tunnel. The guy getting chased here actually speeds up for these innocent bystanders, and we soon learn that until today he was known as a "real gentleman". (cut to him banging his head in the car to some heavy metal song) Mixing in bang-up direction and some really out-there music, this car chase thrills me long after more famous ones have left me reaching for a guitar or something.
I have to admit to having a weakness for movies where seemingly normal (but hostile) people get shot about a hundred times but still don't go down. It's like a zombie shoot, in a way, but zombies all act the same, really, and aren't likely to shoot at you or jump into a dog. This movie also features what's got to be at least the third-best "unstoppable killing machine mows down an entire police station" scene (the others being in The Terminator and Maniac Cop 2).
The cast is great, if not much of a marquee draw - Nouri takes what might seem like a fairly routine role and injects some life into it (note his delivery of "OUR time."). McLachlan plays his role with, appropriately, way too much caution, although it invites speculation as to why he drives a Porsche. Watch also for Ed O'Ross (not playing a heavy, for once) and Claudia Christian (relax, that ass you see is probably a body double, like in Hexed). And if you've got really sharp eyes, you can spot Danny Trejo as a prisoner. (I just KNEW I recognized him)
The only real problem with this movie is a klutzy conclusion, which introduces the use of a flamethrower not-so-inconspicuously introduced earlier in the film, and asks us to swallow that a certain character, after certain events, would be allowed to stroll around a hospital unsupervised. Ah, well.
Director Jack Sholder previously gave us the second Elm Street movie and an underrated Straw Dogs-like slasher flick called Alone In The Dark. This film gave me a lot of hope for the guy; after all, his other Elm Street directing brethren have almost all gone on to bigger and better movies, as in plural, but in Sholder's case, he never managed to make more than just one, this one.
The Hidden spawned one sequel (which sucked) and a number of imitators, most notably the last Friday The 13th movie, and last year's Fallen. It's amassed a lot of popularity for a movie that, to my best recollection, never made it to theaters here in town. It's certainly well-deserved. I'd bet that it would have been a huge hit if it had featured bigger stars. Nobody here is a name actor, but they all excel in their roles, so the result - regardless of what success it had - is nothing less than a fine, fast-paced, and very fun movie.