General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Hidden

The Hidden is a 1987 American science fiction horror film directed by Jack Sholder and released by New Line Cinema on October 30, 1987. Written by Jim Kouf under the pen name Bob Hunt, it follows a Los Angeles detective and an FBI agent pursuing a slug-like alien parasite that enters human hosts through the mouth and compels them toward violent crime.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	October 30, 1987, on 1,045 screens in the United States, distributed by New Line Cinema¹
Box office	$9,747,988 domestic; $2,492,618 opening weekend, 25.6% of the total gross³
Director and writer	Jack Sholder; screenplay by Jim Kouf under the pen name Bob Hunt²
Lead cast	Michael Nouri as Detective Thomas Beck, Kyle MacLachlan as FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher, with Claudia Christian, Ed O'Ross, and Clu Gulager³
Runtime and rating	96 minutes, rated R³
Critical standing	76% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 34 reviews; 73% audience score⁴
Awards	Grand Prize at the 1988 Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival; Best Director for Sholder and a Best Film nomination at Fantasporto²

Spoilers

Plot and premise

The story opens with Jack DeVries (Chris Mulkey), an otherwise law-abiding citizen who abruptly robs a Wells Fargo bank and kills the security guards. Los Angeles detective Thomas Beck (Michael Nouri) is assigned to the case and teamed with FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan). DeVries, it develops, is possessed by an alien, slug-like parasite that enters its hosts through the mouth. Among the other targets are a hospitalized man in a coma (William Boyett), a stripper called Brenda (Claudia Christian), Beck's boss (Clarence Felder), a fellow detective (Ed O'Ross), a candidate for president (John McCann), and a dog as well. In a late development, Gallagher is revealed to be something other than his true self: like the criminals he hunts, he is not human, having been sent to Earth to apprehend the extraterrestrial fugitive.²^•⁵

The parasite's hosts indulge in hedonistic behavior and violent crime, and the film plays the premise as a buddy-cop procedural crossed with body-snatcher horror. Audience and critical commentary has repeatedly noted the creature's tastes for fast cars, heavy metal, and excess as a source of the film's dark humor.⁴

Production

The project came to New Line Cinema through Heron Communications, the company's partner on the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Jack Sholder, who had directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), read the script and was eager to direct. Writer Jim Kouf initially wanted to direct the film himself; when New Line declined, he refused to complete further rewrites and lost interest in the project. Sholder rewrote several scenes to flesh out the characters and give the material depth, aiming to avoid what he called "a straight-on, action shoot-'em-up type." He later named The Hidden his favorite of his directorial projects, which also include Alone in the Dark (1982).¹^•²

Principal photography began on March 16, 1987 in Los Angeles, and shooting wrapped by mid-August 1987.¹ Casting the leads was difficult, but friends Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri both liked the script and agreed to play the roles after auditioning together. Sholder considered MacLachlan "an inspired choice" but found Nouri difficult to direct, describing the working relationship as the toughest he had experienced with an actor. The scene in which the alien transfers from DeVries to the hospital patient was accomplished with stop-motion photography, and actor William Boyett was so repulsed by the mouth-entry scene that he left the screening room rather than watch it.²

Release and box office

After the film tested well, New Line invested $5 million in a nationwide advertising campaign, positioning it as an action-suspense-mystery thriller, and planned a nationwide sneak preview for October 16, 1987. It opened on 1,045 screens on October 30, 1987, taking in $2.5 million in its first three days and ranking sixth for the weekend. After three weeks it had grossed $7.7 million, and it finished with a domestic total of $9,747,988 against a reported international gross of $245 from a 2022 New Zealand re-release.¹^•³ A contemporary account attributes the modest performance to competition from Fatal Attraction and John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness over Halloween weekend 1987.⁶

In 1988, New Line-Heron Venture filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit over the NBC television miniseries Something Is Out There, citing similarities in story.¹^•⁶

Reception and legacy

The film received mild critical praise on release. Roger Ebert called it "efficient and original," and Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described it as "as unstintingly violent as it is crudely ingenious." It has since become a cult favorite; a 1992 Los Angeles Times retrospective by James M. Silver called it "outstanding."² On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 76% Tomatometer from 34 reviews; Variety called it a well-constructed thriller brought down by a conventional ending, while Sean Axmaker described it as a high-concept, low-budget thriller turned "minor classic."⁴

At the 1988 awards season it won the Grand Prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, a Best Director award for Sholder and a Best Film nomination at Fantasporto, a Best Actor award for Nouri, the International Critics' Jury Prize for Sholder at the Catalonian International Film Festival, and Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor, Director, and Writing.²

Home media and German release history

In Germany the film, titled The Hidden – Das unsagbar Böse, ran uncut in cinemas and on VHS. The German Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Young Persons (BPjS) indexed it in 1990 and lifted the indexing in 2015. In 2024 the FSK granted an uncut release a "16" rating, and in the same year Plaion Pictures issued the film's German Blu-ray and DVD premiere in two Mediabook editions. On November 19, 2026, both media were scheduled to appear together in a Scanavo case as a Fullsleeve Edition, with the uncut version running about 97 minutes and carrying German DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtracks.⁷^•⁸

In the United States, Lionsgate Home Entertainment released the film on video on March 23, 2010, and it is available for rent or purchase on digital platforms including Amazon Video, the Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home.³^•⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films of the 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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