Midweek Mention... The Hidden

The Hidden

Cris: Have

we got a, an intro or?

Sidey: mid weeker.

Reegs: it's

Cris: Oh, okay. Well then, welcome to Bad Dad's Film Review. I

Sidey: I read an article, I was reading an article and it was about

Underrated or forgotten films from the 1980s. And this one was on the list.

Dan: Was it hidden in there?

Sidey: It was towards the end, tucked away, hidden at the end. Yeah, it's the hidden. Oh. And so that in itself drew me to it but also stars Carmichael who I like. Yeah. So, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Dan: it a whirl.

It's not the guy out of Neighbours, is it, that does Ooh Mona, that's a different MacLachlan. Craig

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: Both equally talented, but this was Kyle.

Dan: Kyle. So Kyle has been, he was Ray out of the, the doors, the Oliver, Oliver Stones movie. He was Ray Manzarek and he also played in Twin Peaks.

Sidey: He was Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks.

Dan: Yeah.

Cris: Oh yes,

Reegs: lot of Twin Peaks vibes and connections

Dan: be because when you said his name, I, I didn't picture him, but when I saw him I was like, oh, that guy. Yeah, I

Sidey: we we watched Blue Velvet on the pod

Dan: that's

Sidey: the star of that. And yes, he's in this. It doesn't appear immediately. It starts off. We get some great typography of the the name in a kind of really cool green color. Well,

Dan: res and I watched this together. And you'd mentioned it before. No we didn't.

Cris: Were you holding hands while you were watching

Sidey: some

Dan: movie.

Reegs: We did, we did watch a movie, yeah, yeah.

Dan: But we talked about this movie and yes, you'd mentioned it before in

Reegs: I've mentioned it on the pod, yes. Once before, because I had not made the connection when you said it last week. But yes, I had seen this movie before and I had mentioned this opening sequence that we're probably just about to talk about.

In great

Sidey: Yeah. It goes, it goes from the, the name of the film and then it goes into CCTV.

Reegs: Yeah. Footage of a bank, black and white footage, people going about their business. And then a guy comes in, in a trench coat.

Sidey: Anyone who stands stationary at the entrance to a bank, you know, something's about to go

Dan: Well, you've got this kind of bright green font coming over, introducing different characters and names, as well as the film and then we see, yeah, as all this is going on.

Sidey: else want to say

Reegs: Yeah, should we say the same thing again?

Dan: don't think you said the same thing,

Sidey: Did you

Dan: say it was green, did you say it was

Sidey: Yeah,

a

Dan: Right, okay, I'm painting a picture here for the viewers of our

Sidey: But the guy in the trench coat, in the bank you can see what's gonna, about to go down, and he does put out a gun and just starts blowing people away.

Reegs: Security guards first, and then other people and then turns and smiles directly at the

Sidey: I was like, oh, he's going to

Dan: It is, it is a ballsy move. And then as he exits the bank.

Reegs: He escapes in a 1978 Ferrari, 3 0 8 GTS. Yeah,

Sidey: I've got a list of all the cars in this, yeah.

Dan: He does, but it comes out

Reegs: listening to some hair metal

Dan: I'll try again. He comes out from the crowd from the CCTV footage, into colour then. So the film goes into colour, and I like that bit as it just

Sidey: And I recognized him. This is one of the Twin Peaks connections. He's Norma's ex con, current con husband in Twin Peaks. Right.

Dan: right? Okay.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: you go.

Dan: Well, this, this madman now just gets behind the wheel of the car and he's off.

Reegs: He puts on some loud hair metal and drives through the streets of LA. Really good stunts you know, going fast, obviously physical stunts. A few gags in here as well. He runs over a guy in a wheelchair which just like completely unnecessary. And then

Sidey: then they do the wines world with the glass.

Yeah,

Reegs: brilliant. Two guys carrying these like panes of glass and he drives, he think is he going to just go through the glass, but he takes everything out.

And there's blood everywhere. And it's a really good,

Dan: Yeah, really easy for him to avoid both of those things as he's driving, but he's no intention of doing so. He's just plowing through, and

Sidey: Well, as the viewer, we've seen him, he's robbed a bank, you know, in broad daylight, there's no

Dan: no He gives zero fucks.

Sidey: not concerned about anyone, you know, seeing him or hiding his identity like that, so he's just brazen, you

Reegs: Yeah, and it's firing through the streets of LA, being chased by the police. Meanwhile, as all this is going on, I think we're getting back, don't we?

Michael Noorie is he's investigating this guy, Jack DeVries, they know his name because later we'll find out he's robbed seven banks And

when

Dan: he goes

through that glass as well, it just totally smashes his windscreen. And yeah, you're right. All he does is just turn up the music and just beat a little bit harder with the with the chaos that's going,

Sidey: attempt one roadblock, don't they? Which he kind of rams his way through and then they, they finally, they do stop him. And I think he gets shot as

Reegs: gets shot as he I

Sidey: I think they get shot in the car as he's driving, doesn't he? And then he kind of sort of tamely rolls to the side of the road and gets out and they apprehend him.

Dan: Wait, is, is, is, does it go on fire?

Reegs: there, it's an explosion, isn't it? Because he's, he's like burnt and all

Sidey: of things. He's not killed because he ends up in, in

Dan: That's

right. Multiple burns victim. And he's in hospital alongside another poor guy. Looks like he's on his way out.

Sidey: He's in a coma. Yeah.

Dan: and we, we see Nuri Beck, the, the detective, who's already been established as a, a top Early part of the film, he's the top cop there.

He's the the one that they all go to. They're going to give the toughest cases to.

Reegs: Well Masterson, his boss, has already had a conversation with somebody else who's trying to poach him for the agency or

Dan: right. Yeah. Yeah. So we, so we know he is the man

Sidey: the real deal.

Dan: And it, he comes in one the, this guy called McLaughlin.

He comes in And starts speaking to Beck saying, Right, I'm FBI, I need you to help me find this guy, Debris. And he goes, No need, he's in hospital, I've already seen him. He's fucked, he's, he's gone, this guy, don't worry about it. And he obviously does not understand the seriousness of this hunt because Karl MacLachlan, he runs out and goes straight to the hospital only to find

Sidey: We see it.

Dan: Yeah, we see it.

well I was so so what we see is Is this kind of weird bug fucking

Sidey: Well he goes to what's the next victim called? It's

Reegs: U. Miller, isn't it?

Dan: said it

Sidey: And this guy's in a coma and he kind of puts his fingers in his mouth and opens his mouth and then transfers

Reegs: He vomits a kind of slug like thing that well not vomit. It takes a few seconds to emerge from

Dan: mouth. It

Reegs: of slithers into the other guys and goes down his throat sort of thing.

Dan: It doesn't look like it's gonna fit in his mouth, it's a big old thing to swallow

Reegs: again. Great practical effects. 1987. Yeah. Um, And

Dan: it really was. Yeah, and and then suddenly we know as the viewer what's going on.

There's some kind of sci fi alien

Parasite that is living through humans to wreak havoc

Reegs: Yeah, it's very much like, I don't know if you've seen the movie Fallen, Denzel Washington, it's sort of similar conceit, passed by touch, but yeah, we've got that kind of thing going on.

Yeah, so

Sidey: Yeah, so that the freeze host is now dead and this fella who you know, in the hospital terms, this guy was gone. He was just being

Reegs: was awaiting a transplant or something,

Dan: He

Sidey: have it in him to get out of bed and go on a killing spree.

So they're really

Dan: But that's what

Reegs: Yeah. He goes to the record store. It's quite funny, isn't it? And he's like stealing tapes. He's putting them in his pocket. I like the fact that this alien is just a dick. Like, it's just a sort of troll, a lol, a

Dan: his heavy metal music and and his rock music

Reegs: shit for stealing

tape, doesn't he? Then he goes to a garage.

Yeah, well, Karl Buchan he's

Sidey: He's Lloyd Gallagher, is it? Yeah. Is it now where he explains what's going

Reegs: on? Oh no, not

Sidey: Ferrari. So then it must be the garage bit then. When he goes to the garage and there's two guys doing drugs, and really 80s kind of salesman kind of shtick.

Yeah, and he's like, have some more in the toy Ferrari that he's got his desk in the boot is loads and loads of cocaine. And they're doing that.

And then he walks in and basically kills them both and steals a car. And when they get to the scene, and they see these dead guys, and

Gallagher knows what's going on. He says he'll have taken the Ferrari or the, you know, he'll, he likes

Reegs: he likes Ferraris. Yeah.

Dan: the Ferrari or the, you know, he likes, he likes Ferraris, yeah. whatever was bad in De Vries has now been transferred into another human. So he's like, well, what the fuck are you doing? And the FBI officer, Cole, he's trying to explain saying, no, no, they're working together.

They're like, it's both of them. And he's like, fuck sake, something isn't making up something isn't making sense here. But he goes along with it because he's intrigued. He gets into the car and he goes, where'd you get this Ferrari? And he goes, I stole it. And he's like, well, he thinks it's a joke. And you're right.

The, the the idiot.

Sidey: It's a Porsche, isn't it? He

Dan: loves music and he loves Porsches, doesn't he?

Reegs: it's like Grand Theft Auto, really, for him, he just goes around yeah,

Dan: Doing what the fuck he likes.

Reegs: So Beck is kind of catching up because Gallagher tells him we've got to follow this guy Miller. And he's like, well, no, he's got no previous convictions except for traffic offenses. There's no need to, but then suddenly a guy matching his description is being phoned in. And also when he gets to a crime scene Gallagher's already there because he's tracked, he's followed Miller already.

So anyway Miller though, has gone off. He's gone back to this guy who was buying the

He goes back to his place. I only mentioned this just because he puts on some music. It's like really happy, jaunty music and he destroys the the record player. But it turns out this guy was like some sort of arms dealer, right.

And has a load of weapons there. So really not the

Dan: Yeah, so he's absolutely tooled up and he's not really sure what he he wants.

Reegs: but he wants a stripper.

Dan: And that's yeah, so he he he does he's he kind of got a few lurry looks isn't he and he he goes into this

Bar and he is looking ill, you know, I mean he he's he's a man his body is giving up even though this

Sidey: he's a bit like the men in black one, Vincent Donofrio

Reegs: it. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

he's having to pull his face and all that. he

Dan: looks like he's going gray or something doesn't he and and A couple of people ask him if he's okay, and he hasn't got much in the way of conversation.

It's just like, yes, no, fine. And,

Sidey: we need a new

Dan: when he goes, yeah, he's after a new host, basically. So he goes into this, this kind of stripper's changing room.

Reegs: Well, we've seen her on stage because it was somebody from something. It was, if you're a Babylon 5 nerd, I think

Sidey: she is for babylon 5.

Yeah Yeah

Reegs: this is like right up your street because it's like the

captain.

I never watched Babylon 5, Babylon 5, but

Sidey: neither did I. Friend of mine was super into it, and I used to take the piss out of it.

Reegs: well, this girl is, she's super hot in this. So,

But pretty long, it's not long before she's slug fodder.

Dan: Yeah, although we then get her in the, so she's The, the body transforms into her, the, the alien transform, you don't see that, but you see her walking out with all the guns as the police have been called and just arriving on the scene.

But they're after a bloke called Dick Miller, so they, or whatever it is. And she, Well, she's after the car. She looks at it and the policeman says, No, don't be eyeing up that car, move on. And then some other guy goes, Hey, baby, how you doing? And she just like looks at him and gives him a half a smile when he goes, My car's just parked around the corner.

And she's like, Right, okay.

Reegs: But she does fuck him, so, she didn't have to, did she? But she

Dan: Well, she might just,

Sidey: you're an alien, you know,

Dan: You want to try it

Sidey: hosting.

Cris: bit of

Sidey: Yeah, you gotta make the most of that

Dan: but he's ditched on the floor dead. And the Gallagher and Beck have just turned up at the strip place just across the road before they're told there's another body in the car park.

Sidey: They're always just one step behind,

Dan: they just seemingly one step behind. And it's around this time when Beck is just like, for fuck's sake, not another one. You've got to tell me what

Sidey: you fucking know something.

He

Reegs: the hell is going on. What the fuck? Oh, and also he pulls out the little butt plug thing.

He's got

like a special silver butt plug

Dan: Yeah, which got which has got a laser ray in it as well. So

Sidey: Yeah. Megan's

Dan: ends up arrested him because he just say, no, fuck this. You, you, you're not making sense. And he finds out, actually this guy's full of shit. The guy who he's claiming to be died a month ago in the woods.

This guy was said to be his friend or something, but is now assumed the identity of this FBI officer. So he throws him in the, in the in the jail. And he's

Reegs: he ambiguously says he was his partner, doesn't he? So we don't That's left

un yeah.

Un commented on.

Dan: and there has been, although there was the weird family meal scene when he's just around,

Reegs: on the kids, the kid can see him. The kids can see, can see what freak show he is when he goes for, for dinner.

Yeah. Beck's house.

Dan: Yeah. They, she's, she's very slow to, to warm to him, isn't she? And yeah, they, he's going, oh, you like your, she's very special, your child. And he's like, yeah, well, of course we love her. She's our, she's our daughter. We're her parents.

Yes. We love her. And he is like, Hmm. And you just think, yeah, this guy's not normal. That becomes later that we realize that he too is an alien.

And this other alien He's

Sidey: he's an extraterrestrial lawman. and the thing Oh the thing this creature is a thrill killer that inhabits other bodies and just goes about its Thrill killing

Dan: And we know that he's been after him for about nine of your Earth years.

Sidey: It's killed his family, isn't it?

Dan: so

Reegs: it's what, he's his partner. Right? So it isn't, yeah. You know, it's not clear whether he's talking about like the cop partner, his life partner, whatever, but yeah. Something.

Dan: me explain that

Sidey: he explain that the only way he can kill it is in slug form. Yeah.

Reegs: With that

Dan: can't do

Sidey: kill it while it's in the host.

Yeah,

Dan: That's right because the the butt plug gun won't shoot humans but it can shoot through fucking walls and and everything else like um, but

Sidey: it's alien technology,

Dan: yeah, no, it's it's solid solid foundations. Anyway,

after that,

Reegs: that big shootout thing where Brenda got shot the shit out of the on the roof, she goes into a dog, another thing connection, and then ends up going to Masterson, which was the boss that we saw at the beginning.

So while all this stuff comes out Gallagher and who he is, the alien, the butt plug and all that stuff. Masterson comes into the police station and just kicks off a rampage, doesn't he?

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: that's when we see Danny Trejo pops up for a line. Did you see him?

Dan: Yeah.

yeah, quickly did. Yeah, pulled in.

I've just got a quick word from our

Reegs: our sponsor.

All right. Yeah.

Dan: It's

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Reegs: Thanks. Thanks. But

Dan: That's for them.

Sidey: we fill in the blank ourselves?

Dan: Yeah, well, there's Beep. But yeah, we're getting to the sharp end of the stick now because one hero alien's in jail and another one wants to find him, and he comes fully kitted out, pretty indestructible, think Terminator, going into a into the police station, and he, he realizes Beck

He's taken over an officer, another officer, isn't he?

The

Reegs: He's taken over

Dan: over his body. Willis is the second one he takes over. First one, it's, it's like the lieutenant. Yeah. And he's got Like, can't Blanche to go anywhere. And he just walks in there and he starts tooling himself up with big guns, goes to the ammo room, finds the little silver butt plug as well, puts that away and he's going to go and kill the, the alien lawman.

And he gets kind of questioned on the way. And then it all starts kicking off because he, he starts shooting cops. He's like, what the fucking hell, he's gone rogue. He's gone rogue, they don't know what the fuck is going on. But he's starting to believe now, Beck, wait a minute. There's something fucking wrong here.

This is not, you know, this guy was otherwise perfectly fine. He was a cop, he was my mate. Now, he's shooting everybody. So they're taking him down and it's there's grenades, there's all kinds of coming out now, isn't there? I mean, there's all guns and, and as, as they make their way down through the cop shop, he's winning the alien.

He's making his, his way through. He's killing everybody. A few cops have died. It's an absolute storm.

Sidey: There's a there is a load of bedlam and he's able to get away and it seems like because he was looking at the president on the telly earlier on and he seems like he actually does have a plan rather than just being a completely like.

Anarchist or whatever.

And so he goes

Reegs: whatever.

Yeah, because he's got

Sidey: so because he's got now credentials is able to get close enough to a senator. Yeah and transfer into that body

Reegs: The, the transformation from Willis to the what is he, a senator guy happens kind of off screen, but we know it's happened, and then he goes to do a press conference, and Gallagher turns up at the scene of where the presidential address or whatever that is, and sees him being whisked away, surrounded by security guys, nothing he could do.

Earlier on, by the way, they casually dropped into conversation that somebody had found a flamethrower. Do you remember this? In the,

Sidey: Might be useful later on

Reegs: Might be useful later on, and it, yeah, the literal Chekhov's gun. So Ganniker just goes into this press conference whilst the guy's about to deliver it, and just whacks out this flamethrower

Dan: not before taking a few shots himself. And we, we realize like he's got a bit of,

Sidey: Well, Beck's been,

back gets wounded as well.

Dan: Yeah, well, he, but he

Reegs: Even if he gets

Dan: He, he gets wounded and it hurts like a bullet. When these guys get wounded, they just carry on. So he still manages to squeeze out the, the flame thrower and everybody's screaming their heads off. It's a packed auditorium. And then somebody says this black charred body, just as they're about to, you know.

Put the the final bullets into into carl. They go. What's that? And the slug starts coming out. He brings out the silver butt plug and raise it doesn't he and h

blows

into a million pieces and he kind of um dies as well.

Sidey: No, he doesn't.

Dan: He goes, oh, what

Sidey: Gallagher.

Dan: The, the,

Reegs: slug monster.

Dan: Right. The slug monster and the senator.

They're, they're all,

Reegs: They're, they're gone. Gallagher goes to visit Beck in the hospital.

Dan: Yeah. He breathes a bit of life into him.

Reegs: Yeah, well Beck, Beck is not long for this world. It becomes pretty obvious, doesn't he? And then we see Gallagher's true form, which is, yeah, he's not a repulsive slug monster.

He's a sort of golden ray of light, isn't he? And he transfers his consciousness into Beck,

Dan: know his life force. He opens his mouth and and breathes it in

Reegs: So when the family come in, Gallagher's dead on the floor, but Beck is still alive and he greets him with a smile. The, the wife, we saw a little touching moment of them earlier on.

She's immediately like over the moon, but the daughter

Dan: the daughters yeah, she takes a little longer to to accept that You Daddy is is the guy in front of her but And that's kind of

Reegs: it. Yeah.

Dan: is it then isn't it?

I was a hidden gem this I really like this. I mean, it's real tones of the thing and that kind of you know

Sidey: yeah

Dan: budget height fast pace, There was You know influences I think that other films have taken everything from maybe terminator to to

Reegs: Robocop

it felt like it could be in the same sort of universe as some of

Sidey: It felt like a kind of John Carpenter vibe to me. Cause Soundtrack was really good. This is a plot itself isn't you know, it's not that unique.

I've seen other ones. There's a next gen episode like this. It's like body snatches and all that, but still, it was, it was good fun. I did enjoy it.

Dan: that I did enjoy. Yeah, no, there was, there was definitely enough about this that I thought, why have I not seen it?

Sidey: I've literally never heard of

Dan: No, I

hadn't.

Cris: I'm pretty sure I've seen this already. Alright. I mean, I've not seen it for,

Dan: for

Cris: I didn't refresh my memory because I fell asleep. But I'm, from what you guys just told me until now, I'm pretty sure I've seen this before.

Reegs: It, it's a, it's got a pretty like weird balance of tones. Cause it's like over the top, violent and gory.

And then sometimes really funny. Like they have that conversation where cover me. What do you mean? Like where he doesn't like it, like kind of buddy cop fish out of water type thing. And then sometimes it's like quiet and dreamlike and very like, yeah. So it is a real oddity as well.

Sidey: he mowed the guy down in the wheelchair.

Reegs: Yeah, I was howling with

Dan: there's some real dark humour in there. And as you say, like, the moments where he's, he's Drops an Alka Seltzer, doesn't he?

And then he puts that in his mouth and he goes, No, you should put that in the water and then drink the water. And then later on he says, Oh, you know, Beck said you could do with an aspirin.

And then he drops that in the water instead of putting it in his mouth. And you can see he's just getting things the wrong way around.

I think he has one beer and he's just like in a total mess, isn't he? He's like, he slept out and he goes, You shouldn't drink anymore.

Reegs: it was a slug, wasn't It

I mean, maybe had they tried throwing salt at it or like, copper. They don't like going over

Dan: they don't. Yeah,

Reegs: So

Dan: They don't mind

Reegs: put it, put, just like put some copper in a circle around him and

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: It's directed by a geezer called Jack Shoulder.

yeah,

Reegs: He did Nightmare on Elm Street too.

Sidey: Yeah, Freddy's Revenge. He also did Sketch Artist 2, Hands That See. Sounds amazing.

Reegs: That's a good one. And Alone in the Dark, if you've seen that as

Sidey: Tales from the Crypt.

Dan: Do

we have any any stats for this other

Sidey: That sounds quite a lot

Dan: sounds quite a lot from what I saw on the screen.

Sidey: It's

Cris: What do think? it has

Dan: I don't think it has made money from 5 mil, but I'd like to think it did.

Sidey: it doubled up.

Reegs: All right.

Dan: Oh, okay. Pleased. 1.7.

double. Yeah.

Sidey: So it depends what they spent marketing it but it must have at least broken even.

Dan: Well, I'm pleased for that because it definitely didn't deserve to be a flop.

Reegs: Oh. Michael Nuri, I think turned down Lethal Weapon, which was also

Sidey: True fact.

Reegs: to be in this movie.

Sidey: Yeah, Riggs, he was gonna,

Dan: he was a big star at the time, I think, and I saw him in something else and now he just

Sidey: I think it's mainly tv. TV stuff. Yeah. Other people who were considered for, tom Beck, the character. Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Kurt Russell, Christopher Lamberts, Michael Keaton, Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Perlman, Stephen Lang, Michael Bain, Dennis Quaid, Jeff

Reegs: Michael Bayne!

Sidey: Michael Bain.

Nick Nolte. Gary Boosie, Tommy Lee Jones, Richard Gere, Bert Reynolds, Don Johnson, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis.

Cris: are all the actors that were alive in

Dan: everyone.

Cris: 87. So I don't

Sidey: thought, should we get And then you

just

Reegs: actor. Yeah,

Sidey: and then went, no, we can't get any

Cris: Because this was

Reegs: get Karl

Sidey: Yeah, because this was obviously pre Twin Peaks as well, so he wasn't a big star at that point.

Dan: But I liked him in this and and I like this movie strong recommend for me

hidden no longer.