This is the proverbial Great Science Fiction B-Movie. I first saw it when it came out in 1987, and loved it. Over the top but fun, with a tight script, some great car chases and action sequences, a dash of political humor, and a surprisingly touching ending. Courage, madness, vengeance and self-sacrifice - it’s all in there.
A pre-“Twin Peaks” Kyle MacLachlan is an alien detective on the hunt in Los Angeles for a slimy, lizardlike badass alien who can move from body to body. (A great, unforgettable scene in a hospital room when the villain picks a new host!). Michael Nouri is the overworked, weary LAPD detective who initially thinks MacLachlan’s nuts, but then sees too much and becomes his ally. The badass alien loves loud music, big guns, fast cars and random ultraviolence. While possessing the nubile form of future “Babylon 5” star Claudia Christian, it literally humps a guy to death in a car.
Amazing stuff. Never saw the sequel, but I’ve heard it sucks.
Me! I love that movie. Kyle McLachlan is just strange enough for me. (Ok, he’s a little strange at the best of times, but still) And that nasty alien hoppng from host to host… ew.)
That and “They Live” are probably two of my favorite B-movie science fiction films.
Another fan here. I enjoyed in the theatre, and have since rented it (as well as a couple viewings on cable). Great concept, twist on the “body snatchers” theme as well as the cop-chasing-criminal-across-the-galaxy theme.
I’ve always been just a little confused about the ending, though (perhaps as the filmmakers intended). So did Kyle “take over” Nouri’s body/soul, or not ?
Not to change the subject, but another B-movie that I found myself enjoying far more than I expected to was “Chronicles of Riddick”. I expected complete trash, but found myself really enjoying the story and especially the thought that went into the story. Just my 2 cents.
A great and under-appreciated low-budget SF film. The sequels (there were two) were incredibly awful. Don’t watch them.
I always got the feeling that Kyle McLachlan’s character on Twin Peaks was just the guy from The Hidden, only now working out of Seattle. It explained a lot.
And somebody has to say it – if you liked The Hidden, you really should read Hal Clement’s classic SF novel Needle, which Hidden feels as if it’s ripped off from. There was a sequel – Through the Eye of a Needle, which isn’t as good as the original, but is a helluva lot better than The Hidden 2.
My favorite sci-fi film. I watch it every year, at least. The idea of an alien who loves heavy metal music and Ferraris is just beautiful. And I found the sappy ending rather touching.
It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it, how THE HIDDEN has such a passionate following here (until this morning, I thought it was just one of my quirkier tastes), yet isn’t really a “cult” film? No HIDDEN parties, no hip allusions to it, no nothing, really.
Oh yeah Claudia Christian kicks SO MUCH ASS in that movie, and all in that tight skirt, too! When I first watched Babylon 5 I had zero problem buying her as a hard ass military chick, I already knew she’d bust ass, take names and send a bill for the damage afterward. And Kyle McLachlan is a space alien masquerading as human, no wonder he couldn’t have sex with Kristen in “Sex and the City!”
I also enjoy The Hidden. It’s amazing how many movies and TV shows I’ve seen rip off the concept directly, right down to the icky alien crawling in and out of its hosts.
The actor who played Hank Jennings on Twin Peaks (Chris Mulkey, who has a small part in every movie made since 1985) is in the opening scene too.
The director, Jack Sholder, also directed A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 2, which is known among Elm Street fans as “the gay one”.
Director Jack Sholder has certainly been busy over the years, but there’s absolutely nothing distinctive about any of his subsequent work. The Hidden may have merely been a fluke, but it’s a terrific film, and not just a “guilty pleasure”. Certainly leagues better than They Live (which starts off well, and then, you know… )
Screenwriter Jim Kouf’s career has only been marginally more interesting, but he wrote The Hidden under a pseudonym.
I too recognized Agent Cooper *immediately *the first time he came on the scene in Twin Peaks.
When The Hidden was in first run, the previews were really really bad; I crossed it right off my list. At about that time I was in the middle of a 17-year stretch of living entirely without a TV, around the corner from a $2 movie house with a different double feature weekly. I usually got bored enough at least one night a week to see whatever was playing, no matter how bad it looked. I discovered some overlooked movies that way, including of course The Hidden. (Also better than they looked, discovered during this period: Stone Cold, Made in Heaven, Last Action Hero, and I might never have bothered with the masterpiece *Groundhog Day *if it hadn’t been one of my weekly double features.)
What I love most about *The Hidden *is how ludicrous and hilarious all the situations are, but how straightforwardly all the characters play it. It’s a straightfaced scifi horror flick that just cracks you up. And it’s as if they tried to make a movie mixed up of as many genres as possible. It’s an amalgamated satire of scifi movies, cop movies, horror movies, buddy movies, tragic-family movies, political movies–it even has a little Manchurian Candidate tossed in for good measure. The senator who licks his hungry lips! You’re killin’ me!
Plus the best thing about movies like this and The Borrower is everybody gets to play the monster! Even the dog!
(I recorded it with my new DVD recorder when it was on IFC lately, so now I’ll get a chance to determine how many plays it takes to wear through the data of a homemade disc.)
Hey, store it as an ISO on your hard drive, that way you can burn it any time you want and make copies for your friends… unless that would be wrong. How does that work, if you record from broadcast digitally, does it fall into the same category as a VCR recording? [/hijack]
I enjoyed the original film quite a bit. I also have a crush on the guy who played the good alien in The Hidden 2, solely based on his voice acting in the video game Knights of the Old Republic (drool), but man, he just has not had a good record of other projects. I’m thinking even a drooling fangirl should pass on this?
