HIDEAWAY
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1995 Jon A. Webb
Directed by Brett Leonard Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and Neal Jimenez With Jeff Goldblum (Hatch), Christine Lahti (Lindsey), Alicia Silverstone (Regina), Jeremy Sisto (Vassago).
This is a standard horror film, with average direction and writing for this genre (which is to say, they aren't too great). Production values are pretty good; the effects, which seem familiar to me from previews and other promotion of THE LAWNMOWER MAN are probably the best thing technically about this film--though I this particular class of computer effects has been used up.
The role for Jeff Goldblum is weak but okay; the other actors don't have an awful lot to do except the usual--run around and act scared or diabolical as the case may be.
The story opens nicely, with a creepy Satanic murder-suicide. Jeff Goldblum is then in an accident and dies, experiencing special effects oddly reminiscent of the wormhole from STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. When he comes back, he starts experiencing visions of violent murders. It took me a while to figure out what was going on--maybe I wasn't too quick on the uptake here but I found the false leads and their resolution pretty satisfying.
Jeff Goldblum spends quite a bit of time trying to figure out what's going on. Most of this time he doesn't have much to do but sit around and look puzzled, have visions, scribble, or make phone calls to the police. Given this limitation, he's pretty successful at making this part of the film fun to watch. I don't know how many times he has to act like he's seeing something elsewhere which leads him to some great insight--but each time he manages to do it a little differently. This shows how a good actor can help save a film with weak writing.
Jeremy Sisto has a nice greasy creepiness to him; he brings something extra to his role, and is fun to watch. I can see him quite easily as every (horror movie) father's greatest fear; the nice-looking young man his daughter brings home who sees the girl not as a work of art, but as raw materials.
I would have liked this film a lot better if it has been a little more campy. The scene at the end, with the appearance of the younger daughter, would have been enhanced a hell of a lot if when we see Alicia Silverstone's face she was allowed to roll her eyes a little ("They're *still* thinking about her! What, am I invisible?") If you're making a film like this, and you can't make it really good, try to make it really fun. All the raw materials were there (silly father, roller coaster, shotgun, etc.)
All in all I'd give this film a B for the good acting of Jeff Goldblum and Jeremy Sisto and the okay special effects. If you really enjoy this sort of thing, you'll probably enjoy this one; but I wouldn't go expecting to be scared or intrigued much.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews