A Mindful of Red Hoodies: Hidden (2009)

Hidden (Skjult) (Norway, 2009)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Kristoffer Joner, Cecilie A. Mosli, Bjarte Hjelmeland

Kai Koss had an abusive mother. It's been years since he ran away from home and accidentally caused a car crash that killed another young boy's parents but now, as an adult raised in a foster home, he returns after finding out his mother has passed away, seeing this as a way to confront his fear.

As he arrives, strange visions soon plague him, either dark memories from his past resurfacing or cracks in his psyche conjuring horrors, but his situation goes for the worse when two teenagers suddenly went missing one night after they decided to break in to Kai's old house. Some suspect that he has something to do with it, but Koss thinks otherwise, with a suspect of his own: the other boy from the night of his escape, Peter, who many believe died after accidentally running off a cliff in panic. No body was found save for the boy's shoes, so Koss is more than determined to solve this mystery and prove his innocence.

More murders occur, all around Koss' gloomy estate, it's only a matter of time before the truth reveals itself, and Koss will have no choice but to face it.

Horror in Norway can be a hit or a miss. Over time, some good ones did come out to entertain our bloody needs; the more memorable ones being the 2006 snowbound slasher Cold Prey and its sequels, as well as the Naziploitation zombie/slasher Dead Snow (2009). But among others, we also got trash heaps like Hora (2009), a cheap exploitation-type that's a retelling of I Spit On Your Grave (1978), and mediocre ones like Manhunt (2008), a slasher film about people hunting people. (And that's it) Hidden (2009) falls in between these two, it's not good, but nor is it a total waste.

What I like about this film is that there's some well-handled atmosphere here done away with creepy shots of dilapidated houses (complete with littered creepy dolls and mildew-soaked walls), a sense of alienation as nearly every other character around town are either suspicious or just plain uncaring, and scares such as a pair of child's hands suddenly reaching out out of the shadows and ghostly visages that may or may not be there.

If I wasn't aware that this film is part-slasher, I would have thought this is another one of those spook movies popularized by Asian horror such as the Ring (1998) or The Grudge (2002) with all this gothic sensibilities and psychological trauma; nonetheless, we eventually get a red-hooded killer murdering people who makes a rather creepy onscreen debut wearing a doll's face mask. This element in the story is supposed to be a mystery for us and our lead to figure out, but the way it's handled is where I'm a little bit disappointed; clues were given and played out with twists and turns, as well as an assortment of red herrings to sway us off into figuring out the plot too soon. Some worked, some didn't, in the end the conclusion is nothing but a little bit too obvious.

Those who are expecting a typical bloodletting will surely be disappointed; the kills here are tame and most of them are simply implied (the nastiest being a sharpened stick to the eye), focusing instead on the plight and horrors one traumatized man has to live through again and their everlasting effects on his mind. There's more psychological horror here than actual dismemberment, but I'm quite open to this approach as it did give me something rather different from your average hack-a-thon and it is properly acted. Tension is well around the movie and these scenes have their worthwhile moments, just wishing the flow wasn't so draggy at times.

Skjult (2009) is a good watch for patient viewers and lovers of psycho-chillers; not a title I would grab for keeps, but I would rent it again if I have the time and felt like it.

Bodycount:
1 male and 1 female immolated in car crash
1 elderly female seen dead
1 male killed offcamera, clothes seen
1 female killed offcamera
1 male missing, presumably killed
1 male stabbed on the eye with a sharpened plank
1 male impaled through with a javelin
1 male falls off a cliff
Total: 9