The Hidden
Director: Jack Sholder
Year Released: 1987
Rating: 3.0
Police officer Michael Nouri and federal agent Kyle MacLachlan drive all around L.A. in search of a psychopathic alien that changes hosts by crawling out of one mouth and into another (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, anyone?) and has a strong interest in stereotypical 'bad boy' things, such as heavy artillery, fast cars, loud music. One of the better cult/B-movies to come out of the 1980's - as a genre mash-up, it combines sci-fi elements with your traditional detective story for something tacky, exciting and unpredictable, a guy's guy movie. You can see the influence this has on Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black and David Lynch's Twin Peaks (Lynch also finds the Federal Bureau of Incompetence an almost unfathomably screwed up organization); as a portrait of cheesy Californian swagger (cocaine! bad music! Ferraris!), it would make a fascinating - but exhausting - double bill with Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A.
