A slimy homicidal alien slides into the mouths of various victims and takes over their bodies and turns them into violent sociopaths who love thrash metal and fast Ferraris. I love, love, love Jack Sholder‘s The Hidden (’87), and I would kill to own a Bluray of it. For all the anxiety and emotional anguish I endured as a freelance publicist for New Line Cinema in ’85 and ’86 I really miss the old New Line when it was really New Line. The Hidden was a perfect distillation of the old aesthetic.

Not everyone understood at the time or understands now that The Hidden wasn’t just a sci-fi-horror action thriller, although it was that — it was a sci-fi horror action comedy. There is very little in the film that isn’t intended to be absorbed as social-commentary humor or nihilist slapstick. Those scenes with the heavy-set guy with the heart condition who walks around with a boom box and walks onto a Ferrari car lot with a fuck-you attitude (“i need the keys!”) starts at 10:00.