MovieChat Forums > The Hidden (1987) Discussion > A Failure of Nerve

A Failure of Nerve

posted 8 years ago by disinterested_spectator
8 replies | jump to latest

This could have been a fantastic movie if the producers just hadn’t chickened out in the end. Think how great it would have been if Gallagher had opened his mouth and a disgusting parasite had come out and entered into Beck’s mouth. We would have been forced to think that something that looks like a combination slug-insect could be good and kind.

It is so standard in science fiction movies that good aliens look like humans, usually with frail bodies, slightly larger craniums, and larger eyes. But if the aliens look like insects, then we know they are evil and must be destroyed.

This movie could have split those alien stereotypes wide open, making us accept what we should have known all along, that someone who is ugly may nevertheless be good. But there was a failure of nerve. Sure, we can assume that Gallagher and his nemesis were of two different species. We can make up any story we want. But the result is still the same. The minute Gallagher opened his mouth and a beam of yellow light came out instead, this movie became second rate.

[–] Garchomp 8 years ago

I agree, that would have been a very cool way to end the movie.

However, I think the movie was already second rate up to that point. I wanted to like it since I love sci-fi horror and movies involving evil aliens on Earth. However, this movie was just a mash-up of Terminator (doesn't die, barely talks, goes around stealing and killing) and The Thing/Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It didn't really add much extra beyond if you were to combine those movies together.

I couldn't tell if the evil alien actually had a goal of any kind. At one point he tells the good alien "we could rule this planet if we wanted to. Nothing could stop us." But up until that point the evil alien had not shown any desire or ability to blend in with normal humans. It was simply going around mindlessly taking whatever it wanted (it's also really strange that an alien cockroach is sexually attracted to human women even when it is in a woman's body).

[–] moogie (205) 7 years ago

Interesting food for thought and I love this movie regardless. The evil alien's only goal was to climb the ladder and then take over earth (as so many aliens want this lol) and was its way of "blending in". And it makes sense to me that there could be a different interpretation to the evil alien discovering an attraction to the female shape (Miller touching the statue and when inhabiting Brenda's body). Since we no nothing about this alien race, perhaps they do not have male/female as we know it and so instead of sexually, it was only experiencing the difference which certainly could be turned around and work for the audience. And why not as we've seen more than once the inhabited bodies looking at themselves in mirrors touching their own skin.
Yes it does seem stereotype to see an angelic light symbolizing the good alien and a slug-like hideous creature as the bad one but I didn't mind it as it's kinda the way typical plots go - the good guy wears white and the bad guy wears black. But I must agree it would have really been a nice surprise to discover that Alhauge was also a similar type of hideous creature when he was transferring into Beck's dying body in the end.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

The alien was completely narcissistic & hedonistic, simply wanting whatever it could get & enjoy. Like They Live, this is a satiric commentary on the "greed is good" mentality of the 1980s, wrapped up in SF clothing to make its point entertainingly. Both films together make a terrific double bill about the 1980s, in fact.

[–] Wuchak (8833) 4 years ago

The good alien might be the same species as the ugly slug alien -- and from the same home world -- just evolved to a higher level of existence, a spiritual light being or whatever. In other words, the same species evolves in two contrasting directions, perhaps based on character. I'm talking about spiritual cultivation that manifests in the physical shell and then as the body through the course of millennia. It's a possibility.

[–] thingmakersback (1407) 4 years ago

I agree completely.
There is an SF novel which I am strongly reminded of: Needle (1950) by Hal Clement is about a boy living on a Pacific island who has a small protoplasmic alien symbiont take up residence in his body after the critter's spaceship crashes destroying its host. The boy is initially unaware of what has happened since these creatures don't take over the host. It develops that the little blob is a policeman of sorts and is pursuing another of its species who is a pathological criminal. The title refers to the problem of a needle in a haystack as the criminal is not as reckless or vicious as the one in The Hidden, and will take some finding.
The aliens are equally unpleasant, physically, and communication with the host is complicated by the fact that Hal Clement was not about to invoke telepathy or a magical knowledge of an utterly foreign language.

[–] brux (14780) 4 years ago

OK, great idea, go write and direct your own movie then. I thought this was just fine.

[–] mel2000 (259) 3 years ago

You're overthinking this. The good-guy/bad-guy body substitutions weren't the same. Perhaps the writers simply wanted to use a slug when taking over a living body, and required a ray of light when taking over a dead body. A dead body would offer no resistance so no need for a physical incarnation.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 3 years ago

I disagree completely.

Why is it that people of this world worship ugly, evil, dark, depressing, gloomy, murderous, demonic things and REVEL in that filth?

Why can't a movie show two completely different kinds of entities manifest the core of their being in the most visually representative way possible? A good guy is a beautiful, angelic light entity, a bad guy is a disgusting slime slug insect.

That sums it up PERFECTLY, because that's how it really is. We ARE beings of light, after all, and angels are only highly evolved human beings.

Most of this planet's beings DO have souls that look just as (if not more) disgusting as the horrible, slimy, demonic slug parasites of this movie, and kind and compassionate, angelic human beings DO have souls that look like beautiful, bright light-consisting, astonishing brilliance.

This movie gets it right, it's sort-of symbolic, but it's also realistic. It's just that the ugly souls of evil people do not manifest QUITE as physically and literally as in this movie, but as a metaphor for what different souls look like, it's PERFECT.

You will know exactly what I mean when you see your own, disgusting, evil-worshipping soul after you are released from your current physical existence, and then you compare it to a highly-evolved, beautiful, angelic being - then you will probably avert your eyes and experience quite a profound shock due to your own, slimy-sluglike, demonic ugliness and the contrast might cause you immense pain.

You deserve it, though, for writing such horrible posts here..