Hidden (2009)

Absolutely the worst movie.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The opening scene has a 12 year old boy named Kai coming out of what appears to be a grave in the woods. He causes an accident that kills another boy named Peter's parents. The film then jumps to a grown up Kai (Joner) who has inherited his mother's creepy house. His cruel Mother (Agnes Karin Haaskjold) abused Kai when he was young and his memories of her are rotten. He identifies her body at the morgue in a startling scene that has a great jump in it and heads to the house with two cans of gasoline to burn it down. Traumas from his past begin to haunt him and people around him begin to die. Kai becomes convinced it is Peter (Danielsen Lie) as a grown up that wants revenge for his dead parents. This Norwegian horror film has a very strong visual presence which creates some superb atmosphere. Writer/Director Pal Oie uses the Mother character for several unnerving and scary jumps not to mention some hair raising moments. The imagery and mood is odd and the shadowy lighting and cinematography definitely is effective. Even reading subtitles, this one will keep you interested and scared. The story does wander at times, including an ending that may leave you scratching your head, but Hidden is a horror film fans joy due to the fact it is actually scary.

Skjult is an above average horror movie. The cinematography is just excellent especially for a horror movie. There are enough scares throughout to keep you firmly in your seat.But is does follow the standard plot of a horror movie. A mystery, a lot of scares and then a big reveal in the end. But the pacing is quite good throughout. And the big reveal doesn't feels anticlimactic like it does in so many horror movies.Technically the movie is very slick. Everybody has done a good job in acting but nothing really special. Overall a very satisfying horror movie.

The story-telling & direction was HORRIBLE in this film. Pieces of the entire plot are fed to us in so many kibbles that the movie ends up a huge MESS. The director and writer attempted to use the element of surprise to make the film more jaw dropping by throwing in scenes to throw us off, such as the constant presence of this female inn keeper and finding a female officer's photo crumpled up & stashed under water. Than KK catching up to Peter in the forest and Peter mirroring his hand motions as if to say it's actually KK seeing himself. Because a number of scenes and ppl were totally irrelevant & unnecessary, instead of serving it's purpose, it made the film even more chaotic. It was all over the place. Just a big mess! The entire backdrop was of dark dense colorless woods through most all the film, and an old huge deteriorating "filthy" home that should have been less filth & more spook. Even worse, 75% of the film was filmed in this mess of a house. Unlike other foreign films, or another Norwegian film which showed beautiful landscape or country sides of their homeland, this film did not as some claim in their reviews here. I have the DVD on my PC right now and just glanced back through it. The reviews are completely dishonest so I assume were made by those affiliated w/ the film. The purpose of piles of ugly hand stitched dolls is never explained, which we assume would serve a reasonable purpose considering the film & camera also revolved around the quantity while keeping the dolls in almost every scene. I gave it a 2 for good acting by the lead actors and that is the lowest I ever gave any film in my IMDb career. So that should explain anything I left out.

My friend and I sat down over the weekend to watch this movie and my god it is the biggest pile of you know what I have ever seen and I saw the Friday the 13th remake! Now I've seen some awful movies in my 27 years but this one takes the cake, at least with past bad movies that I've watched I'm at least able to keep myself entertained by making fun of things that are going on... my friend and I were able to do this for maybe the first 30 minutes or so and then the movie just became so stupid there wasn't any point to it... Please if you're in the mood for obvious plot and lackluster death scenes waste your time with this movie but I do not for one think it deserves even the 1 star I've given it.