I’ve had The Hidden on my radar ever since I heard it described as a better version of Jason Goes to Hell, a movie I probably would have enjoyed a lot more as a standalone film rather than trying to tell me after eight movies that Jason Voorhees is actually a parasitic worm that inhabits new hosts after ritualistically shaving them. Given Davis’ eclectic mix of horror and sci-fi inspirations, I was excited when he recommended Jack Sholder’s 1987 film, The Hidden. Horror fans should also check him out in the short film Page One, the Stakes is High essay series that he wrote to explore hate and fascism through the lens of vampire films, and his video " Your 21st Century Woke Horror Host: Addison Hadley." He’s currently featured on Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show, where his horror sensibilities can’t help but peek through from time to time. The Hidden airs on Saturday Night/Sunday Morning at 2:45am EST on TCM.Welcome back to Let’s Scare Bryan to Death! Joining us this month is Tarik Davis, a writer and actor whose work stretches across media platforms, from film and television to online content and even stage productions. The politics here do have a bit of 1980s retrograde sexism (its main female character is a stripper who doesn’t get more than a handful of lines), but its excellent execution overcomes its minor flaws. I’ve even seen the movie play at art houses in 35mm, and the print is pristine (seriously, you need to see this movie in a theater if you can). Like this week’s Film on the Disc Intruder, The Hidden found a healthy cult following on VHS. The Hidden died in theaters, running up against the likes of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Fatal Beauty. After that, the movie drops into a bizarro-world examination of what it means to be human by having aliens inhabit human bodies and try to get their kicks using human bodies and making them function at their limits. Records punk cassette and leads everybody on an epic car chase. This is an alien who, after robbing a bank, pops in an I.R.S. And the plot is some brilliantly unholy intersection of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Terminator that interrogates our humanity through visceral experiences with a hint of the 80s alien paranoia from They Live.īut, good god, when the movie explodes, it plays like a shot of adrenaline. Writer Jim Kouf (under the pseudonym Bob Hunt) is best known for co-writing Rush Hour and co-creating Grimm. Director Jack Sholder is best known for directing A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and the 1982 cult slasher Alone in the Dark. ![]() The thing is, The Hidden is far better than it has any right to be. The pedigree of The Hidden isn’t exactly spectacular. ![]() (And, yes, this plot does sound like a trashy genre version of that show that is coming back in style). This killer is actually an alien bug who takes over the bodies of other humans and uses them to commit a crime spree until their body is used up, and then it transfers from body to body. Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI special agent Lloyd Gallagher on the hunt for a thrill killer who opens the movie with a stunning bank robbery. I haven’t figured out why The Hidden is always one of those “Oh yeah” movies. TCM Underground is hitting it out of the park this month, and The Hidden is one of those, well, hidden gems that nobody seems to ever talk about when discussing sci-fi classics from the 80s.
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