HIDEAWAY. Directed by Brett Leonard; written by Andrew Kevin Walker and Neal Jimenez; produced by Jerry Baerwitz, Agatha Hanazakowski and Gimel Everett for TriStar Pictures. Starring Jeff Goldblum, Christine Lahti, Jeremy Sisto and Alicia Silverstone. Rated R.
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Hideaway is not without attractions. It has impressive, original (if overblown) special effects, an interesting psychological puzzle facing its main character (am I or am I not going crazy?), and decent, even occasionally excellent, acting.
But the story is so full of both logical holes and mystical hogwash, that it's impossible to recommend. What it is, really, is an old-fashioned B-horror movie, done up with '90's effects and peopled by much better actors than you usually find in such movies, but a B-movie just the same. Now plenty of people like this kind of movie (no need to feel guilty!) and if you're one of them, you might just take to Hideaway.
Goldblum plays Hatch, (it must be significant, because nobody could really be named that) an antiques dealer who is pronounced clinically dead following a harrowing auto accident. However, he just happens to come under the care of a mysterious doctor (Alfred Molina) who specializes in resuscitation, and soon he's back with his family and all's well. ....cue the ominous music... or is it?
Hatch starts having nightmares about killing young girls and is eventually able to figure out that during these episodes he's seeing through the eyes of a psychotic serial murderer (Sisto, who is exceptionally creepy). Could this psycho have a connection to the resuscitating doctor? Or is Hatch suffering delayed brain damage? Who is actually killing the girls? And when will he make a move on Hatch's conveniently teen-aged daughter (Silverstone)?
This is the stuff of feverish melodrama and Hideaway milks it for all it's worth, and then keeps on squeezing. But the actors are better than their material deserves.
Goldblum is always good at playing heroes with an edge of menace or lunacy, and Hatch has both. Lahti is largely wasted as his wife, but she does make the character as believable as it's possible to be in such a howler of a plotline. Silverstone (she of The Crush and the Aerosmith videos) does little but pout teenage angst. But, then, she does this very well. Sisto, a relative newcomer (he was in Grand Canyon), is very effective as the evil Vassago.
Note for B-movie fans: Hideaway is much more graphic than the classics of this type; there's lots of slicing and dicing, as it were, and a lot of it is onscreen. Be sure to take your Tums.
March 15, 1995