The Hidden is a 1987 American sci-fi action/thriller film starring Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri.
Something hideous is changing law-abiding citizens into monstrous, hyper-violent psychopaths. Now, only Kyle MacLachlan (Showgirls, Twin Peaks) and Michael Nouri (Flashdance) can halt the horrifying rampage of The Hidden.
A series of bizarre, inexplicable robberies and murders have L.A. police detective, Tom Beck (Nouri) totally baffled. And it doesn't help when the mysterious FBI agent, Lloyd Gallagher (MacLachlan) tells him that a demonic extraterrestrial creature is invading the bodies of innocent victims and transforming them into inhuman killers with an unearthly fondness for heavy-metal music, red Ferraris and unspeakable violence.
It's a spine-chillingly, high-velocity sci-fi thriller!
Cinema Cult series.
NTSC FORMAT.
Awards
- Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films USA 1988 – Nominated Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director and Best Writer
- Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival 1988 – Won Grand Prize
- Fantasporto 1988 – Won International Fantasy Film Award for Best Director, Nominated for Best Film
- Sitges Film Festival 1987 – Won Prize of the International Critics' Jury, Won Best Actor Michael Nouri, Nominated for Best Film
Reviews
“A fast-paced, blackly comic sci-fi thriller about a power-hungry alien organism which invades the bodies of law-abiding citizens and transforms them into deranged criminals with a penchant for fast cars, blasting rock music, and violent anti-social behaviour…Created by ace SFX man Kevin Yagher, the organism is a classic (mostly kept hidden); the developing relationship between the two cops is nicely handled; and there's a neat twist concerning the origins of MacLachlan's vendetta against the organism. Powered by a driving rock score, this is by turns sleek, reckless, and smoothly effective, like a Ferrari with a psycho killer at the wheel.” Time Out
“…The Hidden” takes this situation and makes a surprisingly effective film out of it, a sleeper that talks like a thriller and walks like a thriller, but has more brains than the average thriller. It also has a sense of humor, and some subtle acting by MacLachlan, whose assignment is to play a character who always is just a beat out of step…The movie was directed by Jack Sholder, whose last film was “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2.” I don't know what I was expecting, but certainly not this original and efficient thriller." Roger Ebert
" The Hidden," the new film starring Kyle MacLachlan, may be the most laid-back movie about alien invaders ever made. It's set in L.A., and it seems to have soaked up something more than local color. Its virtues are ones that you almost never encounter in movies of this sort; it's really a unique little item – if there's such a thing as punk soulfulness, then this movie has it. This doesn't mean the movie doesn't cook. There are a couple of aliens, and the bad one is particularly obstreperous. The creature is a parasite, and I don't mean that figuratively. (It looks like something you might find rooting around in the trash out behind a Lobster Shack.) To get around – and it likes to get around – it has to enter the body of a living being, and in this regard it's not too picky. It does have very selective tastes, however, and they run toward rock music, loud, and Ferraris, red if possible. (He's sort of a “Miami Vice” alien.)…“The Hidden” is one of the most satisfying genre movies to hit the streets in a while. It isn't major – it's too unassuming, too laconic for that. But it's consistently imaginative. Directed by Jack Sholder (“Nightmare on Elm Street 2”), the movie is sophisticated without being slick. Basically it's a cop movie, but one with an acute sense of B-movie play. Working from Bob Hunt's hilariously improbable script, Sholder has built lackadaisical rhythms into the film, and he lets the story take the shape that seems most natural to it. As a result, nothing about the movie, which has its own special brand of deadpan funkiness, ever feels stale or forced. A lot of the movie's charms are directly attributable to MacLachlan's sly, minimalistic performance. He does some astoundingly droll underplaying here. There's a marvelous scene around a dinner table in which he conveys, almost imperceptibly, that an ordinary, everyday fork is a totally radical concept. And after he's taken only a few sips of beer you can tell that something profoundly upsetting is happening to him. He could be an alien or, perhaps, just wiped out on tricyclics…“The Hidden” isn't as assertive as Michael Laughlin's “Strange Behavior” or its companion film “Strange Invaders,” but it has in common with those movies the same hip insouciance. And there's a little of “Repo's Man's” wiggy unpredictability, thrown in, too. This is a rare kind of pulp; it's boisterously destructive, funny and, at the same time, almost serene." Washington Post