L'alieno

When more than one mild mannered person turns up on a wild rampage of stolen sports cars, indulgence and murder, cop Michael Nouri can barely keep up. But his low-affect new partner Kyle MacLachlan seems to know exactly what is going on. They're perfectly cast in a totally unexpected movie that unfolds with relentless action, surprises, and oddly believable absurdities. Claudia Christian is perfect too, as a stripper who won't take no for an answer.

It's hard to do this movie justice without spoiling surprises, but once you tune in to it, the mix - violence strongly serving character and story, oddball humor, and tantalizing science fiction - is uniquely addictive. There's no other movie like it. Have fun!

One of the coolest and most intense sci-fi movies I've ever seen. True, the body count is high, but it's kind of tongue-in-cheek if you actually pay attention to the movie. After watching it a number of times, I discovered that there appears to be a visual body count tally included on the screen. Five kills in the first killing scene - camera shows it took place on fifth street. There's an elevator scene in which the floor selected indicates the latest current count. Some are pretty subtle, you have to notice the time on the clock or maybe a hospital room number or something like that, but look for a number to appear after each killing or series of killings, and you'll find it. There are quite a few correlating numbers that are just too obvious and too frequent to be coincidental. Check it out.

In the few comments I read about this movie, everyone keeps saying it's too bad Jack Sholder didn't make more good ones like this. Perhaps he didn't have as good a script as this one had!

I haven't seen Sholder's other work, at least I don't think I have as I haven't looked at his credits, but it would seem that the script by Jim Kouf may have had something to do with THE HIDDEN being a quality movie? After all, Sholder's name doesn't appear as the writer!!!!

And it's always been said that a good director can make a terrific movie with a good script, because it inspires him/her, but not even a good director can make something from a bad script.

I liked this movie when i first saw it and every time it's on I try and catch what I can of it.

Someone also said this is a "leave your brain at the door" type movie. I don't think so because this movie lets you guess what's happening without explaining everything or hitting you over the head with superfluous dialogue; it doesn't insult your intelligence, and I thank both the writer and director for that.

This movie is very underrated, and it´s great movie filled with a really great story, full of over the top special effects, over the top action, pursuits, glorious sountrack, what more can you want ?

It has it all, one of the best movies of the 80´s.

This movie is extremely well-made for what it is. Fascinating, thought-provoking, it surprised the Hell out of me when I first saw it. This could have been a "gimmick" sci-fi movie, but it's handled deftly by the director, who I had never heard of, and by MacLachlan, who gives a terrific, sensitive, multi-layered performance.

For that matter, most of characters have real dimension to them. This movie transcends a rather bland, run-of-the-mill science fiction story with the chemistry between its characters and the snappy pacing. I like the way the themes of identity and compassion are actually explored instead of just exploited.