The Hidden, 1987, dir. Jack Sholder. Criterion Channel at home, Wednesday, October 19.

The Hidden is a 1987 action/sci-fi film that owes a bit to the first Terminator film and action tropes of that decade. It was directed by Jack Sholder, written by Bob Hunt, and stars Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri. It’s saying a lot that your big name is Kyle MacLachlan, fresh from the disaster of Dune and the very art-house success of Blue Velvet (“art-house” meaning it made no money).

The movie is about a slithery, slug-like alien that’s on earth, that climbs into people’s mouths and takes over their bodies. They can withstand a ton of abuse, from pummeling to gunshots, and when the body is cashed, the alien moves on to another. This creature is a bad guy even within its own species, for another alien is doing the same thing, going into a body to chase after this slug in the hopes of killing it. No one involved in this movie, other than Kyle MacLachlan (and barely even him), went on to do anything worth seeing. The Hidden works all the way through because there’s virtually no fat, its action scenes are well paced and staged, the direction keeps you abreast of what’s going on and where you are, there’s an 80s-awful synth and rock soundtrack (which means fun these 3+ decades later), and it has a great sense of humor. It doesn’t deserve anything more than to be seen and enjoyed and forgotten. Sometimes, it’s perfectly enjoyable to see people doing their jobs and doing them well enough to earn a paycheck.