Hidden   Starring: Sean Clement and Simonetta Solder G2 Pictures RRP: £15.99 G2P056 Certificate: 15 Available 10 October 2011

Brian Karter is a young man who is woken from his habitual alcoholic slumber by the arrival of two friends who inform him that he has inherited the building where his mother worked. He is horrified at the thought, and issues instructions to have the place burned to the ground. His recently deceased mother, practically single-handedly ran a scientific research facility at the site. Brian has nightmare memories of what he witnessed as a boy, substantiated by the fact that his mother had been charged with malpractice. At length, Brian is persuaded to return to the place with a view to assessing its potential value for sale. The ground level is church-like and quite beautiful, but the group he takes along soon discovers a series of underground passageways, and the individuals become separated and hopelessly lost. Brian discovers that all of the apparatus is still in place and active. His mother had discovered a way to accentuate the location in the brain that indicates a particular addiction, but the addictions soon took total control of the pregnant subjects, and the children emerged as... something else. The children are still here: Hidden...

I’m so glad I was sent the standard 2D version of this film. I think 3D is vastly overrated, and seldom works as well as it should unless it is composited into the making of the movie - like Avatar or other computer generated animations. The plot itself, like many other unimaginative monster or slasher affairs, borrows heavily from Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. You just realise from the start that the only reason a group of that many individuals is entering the building is so they can be picked off one by one. This also seems like an extremely unlikely juncture to rekindle an old relationship with the central character. To infer that it is accidental is a contrivance too far.

Why oh why do some American films now try to emulate the success of the classic Japanese supernatural horrors? In this instance with little girls with black marks in the place of eyes and mouth. It makes no sense; they remake a J-Horror, inferring that the original is sub-standard (when it is in all cases vastly superior), and then in attempting an original supernatural film they actually copy J-Horror-style elements. The only ones I can think of which have really got away with it by producing a grand and unexpected film in this genre are The Sixth Sense, and The Haunting in Connecticut.

Anyway, Hidden does work; it’s just not that special. It keeps your attention, and is an enjoyable run-around, but you just don’t care if anyone dies. One for late night viewing, after the pub, when you don’t have to think too hard about all the unanswered questions in the plot.

6

Ty Power