The Hidden (1987)

 

100 best Science Fiction Movies, Empire Magazine list

 

#89. The Hidden (1987)

 

If there’s one thing that unifies 1980s SF film, was the era’s ability to invigorate old ideas by treating them as if they were brand-spanking new, and sometimes, in the transformation, they actually were new. Some of this is obviously part of any era in SF cinema, the cinema is almost always behind the prose conceptually, so adapting a decades-old novel can be the explosion of ideas new to the specific medium, but in the ‘80s, a lot of what we saw was the attempt to rejuvenate ideas within the same medium. It was the ‘80s that Hollywood became truly sequel and franchise obsessed, which ultimately was of great deficit to the art, but back in those innocent days, the whole recycling thing seemed somewhat less cannibalistic.

 

In 1980 we had the first “Star Wars” sequel, which would become the franchise that ate the universe; and “Flash Gordon,” the revival of the more-than forty-year-old movie serials that inspired “Star Wars” in the first place.

In 1981 we had “Outland,” a quasi-remake of a thirty-year-old Western; “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” was a comedy-remake of a more seriously minded film that was also almost-thirty-years-old.

 

In 1982 we had “Blade Runner,” an adaptation of a nearly fifteen-year-old novel stylistically echoing forty-and-fifty-year-old Noirs; “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” the cinematic follow-up to an almost-twenty-year-old TV series, and the other franchise that ate the universe; and “The Thing,” a based on a more-than thirty-year-old novella and film.

 

In 1983 we had yet another “Star Wars” movie.

 

In 1984 we had yet another “Star Trek” movie; “The Terminator,” which borrowed from two twenty-year-old TV screenplays by Harlan Ellison; “Dune,” an adaptation of an almost twenty-year-old novel; “2010: the Year We Make Contact,” was the sequel to an almost twenty-year-old film and novel; “Twight Zone: the Movie,” the cinematic follow-up to an almost thirty-year-old TV series; “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension” a cornucopia of diverse nostalgias but most explicitly evoking the hero of a series of more-than-fifty-year-old Pulp novels; and “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the fourth official TV/film adaptation of a nearly-fifty-year-old novel.

 

In 1985 we had “Day of the Dead,” the continuation of a franchise already almost-twenty-years-old.

 

In 1986 we had yet another “Star Trek” movie; “Aliens” the second in yet another huge franchise which borrowed heavily from a nearly-fifty-year-old short story and unrelated more-than-forty-year-old film; “Little Shop of Horrors” a remake of a more-than-forty-year-old film; and “The Fly” a remake of an almost-fifty-year-old film.

 

In 1987 we had this one, which was lower budget and less known than nearly all of the above, and it praised for its originality upon its release, by was actually heavily influenced by Hal Clement's novel “Needle,” then nearing forty-years-old. It’s worth comparing the role of influence in “The Terminator” vs “The Hidden,” because Ellison’s influence on David Cameron’s “The Terminator” was never denied by anyone, yet led to acrimonious accusations and a bitter law suit (though it wasn’t really a law suit, because there were no court filings), meanwhile Clement’s influence on Screen Writer Bob Hunt’s (a pseudonym for Jim Kouf) “The Hidden” was obviously greater, but both less acknowledged and created less fuss.

 

Hunt’s version of this story most distinguishes itself from Clement’s by recasting it as a Cop Buddy film (that was most of Hunt’s output anyway) and taking its own sweet time in establishing that it was SF:

 

When a quiet Stockbroker (Chris Mulkey) suddenly goes on an inexplicable shooting and bank-robbing spree in Los Angeles, Police Detective Thomas Beck (Michael Nouri) finds himself under enormous pressure to close the case. When the spree continues even after the suspect’s death, things get even worse. Enter FBI Agent Lloyd Gallager (Kyle MacLachlan), who had been working the same case in a different jurisdiction, and immediately annoys most of the local Cops because of his strange social ineptness -- he’s so weird, he seems almost Alien (hint, hint).

 

Well, it turns out that the Stockbroker was never the Villain, but a Victim, infected and controlled by an icky-looking Alien Parasite, the real Villain, that can switch bodies whenever convenient. We also find out Lloyd is similarly infected, except for him, the Alien is a Space Cop hunting the Villain. Most of the plot suggests both Aliens are the same Species, but there are a couple lines of dialogue that indicate that they may be different ones, and that later has some bearing on what actually happened, or didn’t happen, during the film’s interesting and ambiguous ending.

 

Clement’s novel suffered from having a plot that demanded deeper characterization than that fine writer was generally capable of, while Hunt gave us better-drawn characters by relying on familiar types. Actor Nouri proved quite good as Thomas, but he’d also played very similar characters repeatedly in the past, and he also displayed great on-screen chemistry with MacLachlan as Lloyd.  MacLachlan’s part was the most difficult to cast and proved the film’s masterstroke, MacLachlan had only recently achieved stardom and proved perfectly at home as a thing in the wrong body, his performance is full of wonderfully small gestures, like a scene at a dinner table in which he is trying to disguise that he’s never held a fork before. Our Villain was played by six actors, one of whom being a dog, but remained consistent in personality throughout, if only because of its ravenous hunger for money, fast cars, and extreme violence, the best in that role was the always funny Claudia Christian, who was remarkably convincing as a sleazy stripper considering she didn’t really take that much off during her strip.

 

As it was pleasingly devoid of any attempt at pretention or profundity, it belonged more with the era’s knuckle-headed Action movies more than most of the SF, but unlike the most of the Action movies, it had a cool plot. It was also an exploitation film that didn’t over-play to its own exploitations, the sexual content and violence were all legitimately in service of the plot the only really explicit/gross-out scenes were when the Villain appeared in its natural form. But one could not call this film restrained, or as the frustrated Detective Cliff Willis (Ed O'Ross) stated, "He killed 12 people, wounded 23 more, stole six cars, most of them Ferraris, robbed eight banks, six supermarkets, four jewelry stores and a candy shop. Six of the ones he killed, he carved up with a butcher knife -- two of them were kids. He did all of that in two weeks.” And that was before things really got rolling.   

 

It was Directed by Jack Sholder, whose resume demonstrates that he’s quite capable, but displays few works of distinction (there’s a lot of TV episodes and sequels to other people’s work). After the surprisingly successful of “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge” (1985), Sholder was sought after for more Horror films but he didn’t want to be trapped in that genre, so he jumped at the chance to do this SF/Crime/Action movie. Later, he said in an interview, "It tested through the roof, like it was gonna be a huge hit ... But the movie never broke through. Everybody in Hollywood loved it. I was a hot director for about six months ... Then things started to cool down and I knew I had to do a movie."

 

After that, it was a train of mostly mediocrities. His low point was probably his uncredited labor trying to repair the unwatchable “Supernova” (2000), but then Jesus Christ himself couldn’t save that turkey. For me, his only other real standout was the SF/Cold War Thriller “By Dawn's Early Light” (1990), which, today, is even more forgotten than this one.

 

And it's a damned shame that Sholder didn’t get more love for his work here. He had a flair for action and his story-telling style was clean and economical. He displayed great humor and even human warmth in between the gun battles and car chases. Though LA is usually the US city that gets filmed with the most indifference, Sholder gives us characters, music, and cars that evoke time and place flawlessly. The hair is not only period-perfect, but less exaggerated as many films chose to make it, I especially liked Lloyd’s cut, both Fed Agent conservative and ‘80s big, in the same gesture.

 

The cinematographer was Jacques Haitkin, already a skilled veteran of low-budget cinema, who had worked on both Director Wes Craven’s original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) and Sholder’s sequel to the same. The film looks great, and included some subtle elements in the color design, like Sholder deliberately minimizing the color blue and, in consequence, other primaries really popped in the Strip Club and outdoor night sequences, while in the day-light the sun-bleached streets look somewhat sordid even in the better-heeled neighborhoods. The look reminded me of “The Terminator’s” night scenes and “They Live’s” (1988) day scenes.

 

There’s also a nice electronic score by Michael Convertino which plays up the fantastical elements that most of the rest of the filmmaking plays down, and nicely integrated into the Heavy Metal and Synthetic Pop on the sound track, making those mostly unimpressive samplings a little cooler in context.

 

Despite the film’s financial performance disappointing many, it wasn’t unprofitable and, in fact, proved hugely influential. Its basic plot, two heroes pursuing a fantastical, body-hopping, serial killer, was repeatedly aped by later productions, including A, B and Straight to Video releases, examples:

 

“Something is Out There” (TV mini-series 1988),  “The First Power” (1990),  “Peacemaker” (1990), “The Cat” (1992) “Monolith” (1994), “Fallen” and “Fallen Knight” (both 1998), and “Guardian” (2001).

 

In the midst of this, “The Hidden” got a sequel, which I guess was inevitable given the ‘80s was the birth of our franchise obsessions, but it oddly came seven-years after-the-fact. “The Hidden II” (1994) lacked anyone involved in the first film and is so obscure I don’t think anyone actually saw it, especially those allegedly making the damned thing.

 

Trailer:

The Hidden (1987) Official Trailer - Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri Alien Crime Movie HD - YouTube