The Hidden

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed the holiday season. The last few years have felt like we’ve been working our way through an apocalyptic box set. I don’t hold out much hope, but fingers crossed 2025 bucks the trend. I’m aiming to provide a steady stream of dystopia throughout the next 12 months, of course. At the moment I’m working hard on my next novel, DIRTY DAY, but my first release of the new year will be the 10th anniversary edition of STRANGERS. More about that in the next couple of weeks.

As part of the process for preparing the new edition, I went back and looked again at some of the things that originally inspired the book. One of the biggest influences – in terms of theme, not content – is director JACK SHOLDER‘s largely forgotten 1987 movie, THE HIDDEN. I owned a VHS copy back in the day, but I hadn’t seen the film for many years. I’ve not located it on any streaming services but, fortunately, there’s a decent blu ray version available.

The brief IMDB synopsis for the film is as follows: A cop and an FBI agent race for answers after law abiding people suddenly become violent criminals. I think the blurb from the blu ray is far better: It’s killed 37 people, robbed 6 banks, 2 liquor stores, a record shop, and stole 2 Ferraris. Now the fun starts. It just took over a police station. Esteemed film critic ROGER EBERT‘s quote on the back of the slip case is even better: A cross between INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and THE TERMINATOR. THE HIDDEN isn’t on a par with either of those classics, but Ebert’s quote nails the premise.

For those who don’t know the name, Jack Sholder is the chap who was given the unenviable task of directing FREDDY’S REVENGE, the first sequel to WES CRAVEN‘s stone cold classic NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Time has been a little kinder to the sequel than critics were when it was released in 1985. It’s a very different movie to the original, and even now it doesn’t quite seem to fit alongside the other Nightmare films. I can’t help thinking that the less than positive reaction to this much anticipated sequel must have had a considerably negative impact on Sholder’s career.

Back to THE HIDDEN. This is a pure slice of 1980s horror. It’s perhaps not quite as heavy on the gore as you’d expect, but the soundtrack, editing, hairstyles etc are all peak eighties. KYLE MACLACHLAN stars as Lloyd Gallagher, an FBI agent dispatched to help the local police investigate why seemingly rational people are suddenly turning into crazed killers. MacLachlan was enjoying a fine run of form at the time, mostly courtesy of DAVID LYNCH. THE HIDDEN came off the back of his starring roles in DUNE and BLUE VELVET. Of course, he was catapulted to megastardom a couple of years later when cast as Special Agent Dale Cooper in TWIN PEAKS. You can see some of Cooper’s traits in his character here. Strong support comes from MICHAEL NOURI as the cliched local police officer who resents FBI involvement, and CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN, who, of course, went on to star in BABYLON 5.

It’s no great spoiler to give away the twist: there’s something otherworldly affecting the people who go on to commit these awful crimes. That’s the hook that appealed to me when I first watched the film, and it stuck with me for the best part of 20 years before I wrote STRANGERS. Again, no spoilers – the MacGuffin in my novel is very different to the one in THE HIDDEN, but the central conceit is similar. I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the new edition of the book when it hits the shelves.

There’s nothing deep or meaningful about THE HIDDEN. It’s a fast and fun blast of eighties horror kitsch. It’s not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s hugely enjoyable and well worth 97 minutes of your time.