Hidden (2015) - Movie Review

Three people live in a fall out shelter, underground, hiding from something that lurks outside. Dad - 'Ray' (Alexander Skarsgard,) mum - 'Claire' and daughter - 'Zoe.' They refer to the things that are outside as “breathers” and this little family has lived in this hideout for 301 days. Long enough for Zoe to have an imaginary friend in her doll Olive who to her is a real person. Long enough for the three of them to look quite weary and thin and for the family to have made rules to keep them safe.

Ray, Claire, and Zoe have a stash of cans within the meagre shelter and they soon discover that a rat has taken residence inside their home and stripped them of their precious resources. Things couldn't get any worse you would think.

Terrified of the “breathers,” the family make rules to make sure that whatever it outside won’t find them or see them. At first, it is not known for sure what the “breathers” might be, but from time to time they come around searching for something. The place is locked down pretty tight, with an exit through a hatch in the roof. Apart from the rat, they think they are pretty safe.

A small accident within the shelter causes them to need to go outside.

They can see a little of their outside surroundings by peeking through a periscope. It's clear by the terrain that there has been an apocalyptic event. There are also glimpses via flashback of how this family lived prior to the event happening.

What happens next should be watched from here on in, as I feel it would spoil the rest of the movie. I’m not into spoilers.

Rotten Tomatoes didn’t rate it very highly. The few critics that bothered to write anything, didn’t think much of it in their short quips about nothing constructive. I immediately wondered if some had even seen it properly. A small number of other writers have reviewed Hidden elsewhere on the internet and most had lists of tiny things they picked at about it. Some didn’t like Zoe’s character and felt she played her part terribly. Zoe is played by Emily Lind but given her extensive film and television acting gigs, I would suggest that perhaps the writers wanted it a certain way. She is young, like today in 2017 she would be 15 and the girl has been on the square screen since she was 6. She’s been in 14 films and 19 television shows.

I did shake my head during a scene where she goes to town with the screaming, but I’m not going to blame the actress, I’m going to look at it objectively as whole after seeing the movie and think about all the things that might need her to be that scared at that precise moment in time. Sorry to be so vague… I can’t ruin the ending.

This was Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer’s début film. Who are they you ask? Well, I’m sure this movie may find some popularity eventually because of them. This was their first go at a big film. They did do a small 18-minute short film, released in 2007 called Eater, but I’m not sure they are better known due to that. I’ve included Eater in the review to back up the fact that if you’ve not seen any of Duffers' successful stuff, perhaps after seeing their less main stream viewings like Eater and Hidden, you might just reach out and watch the popular ones. Matt and Ross are twin brothers and they have written episodes for Wayward Pines and they wrote Stranger Things. If you haven’t heard of Stranger Things, you should probably go and watch it after you watch Hidden. Wayward Pines is a lesser known series too, I’ve seen both seasons and it is great, in fact, they are all great. I love these two brothers ability so far and I hope with all my fingers and toes crossed they are working on more brilliance. But don't be surprised if Eater ends up as a full-length feature film in coming years - it's a kind of a cool idea.

A small tidbit about one of the producers too, he was Richard D. Zanuck who launched the likes of Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg and this film was Richards last – he died before it was filmed.

There is a lot more I could say about this movie, like my other reviews so far, I encourage you to not read reviews at risk of having the ending spoiled by reading about the comparisons people make about this movie. They don’t even warn you before they blather on about how it’s like this or like that and lucky me, I saw it before anything the Duff brothers wrote became popular. I’m just lucky my love for all things Alexander Skarsgard led me to find this movie and have it among the vast sea of films I have seen and in the case of Hidden - really liked. Boo to all the critics that bagged the lighting, the acting of little Emily Lind and the slow tense build-up of the movie itself. This movie is different, unique with a sense of sameness from a few other great movies that made it very palatable for me.

It's playing on Netflix

Welcome to Vanessa the Popcorn Eater’s review of Hidden.

• Movie Title: Hidden
• Director: Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer
• Writer: Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer
• Date of Release: September 15, 2015 in the USA
• Genre: Horror/Thriller.. light on the horror – big on the thriller

Hidden went straight to video so there are no box office figures to write about

I watched Hidden last year and again last week. I found it because I love Alexander Skarsgard. I’m sure many people know the series he was in. Alexander is Eric Northman in True Blood and that’s where I began to take an interest in what he was up to on the square screen. The way he towered over tiny little Sookie Stackhouse and the love story between them, forced me to track down and watch things he starred in. This movie has stayed with me, especially since this was released well under the radar and other movies have come out with similar ideas for a plot line.

If you’ve been reading my reviews, you will know that I like the things that no one is really looking at, in saying that, I was way behind anyone else I knew who had watched True Blood, but I caught up pretty fast because it was so good.