After Stephen King's short story "The Lawnmower Man" was adapted to the screen in the Brett Leonard's 1992-film of the same name and in such a way that the author himself tried everything possible to detach his name from the project, curiously the same thing was about to happen only three years later, when Leonard this time set on to direct an adaption of a novel of one of King's main competitors in the horror/thriller genre - Dean R. Koontz's "Hideaway". Koontz was likewise quite unsatisfied with the end result and one can easily see why.
"Hideaway" opens with a young man named Jeremy who has just killed his mother and sister and proceeds to impale himself upon a knife as part of a ritual to willingly damn his soul to hell and be accepted to serve Satan (or something to that extent). So far, so good. Not entirely original, but an effective and creepy opening. Then we are introduced to our main protagonist Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum), of whom we know relatively little - for example the film never bothers to explain what he does for a living (in the book he is an antiques dealer). We see that he has a loving family - wife Lindsey (Christine Lahti) and teenage daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone) and only later do we find out that Hatch and Lindsey had another daughter, who died tragically in a car accident. And speaking of car accident, shortly after we are introduced to the Harrisons (a cute little scene actually in which Regina's parents are playing a game of movie associations and try to get her to participate), another one takes place immediately after. Hatch is driving his wife and daughter somewhere in the night (we never find out where they are going), the car swerves out of the road and falls into the nearby river. Regina escapes just shortly before the car falls in the cold waters, but Lindsey and Hatch are trapped inside the vehicle. Lindsey survives the impact and manages to crawl out of the car, dragging her unconscious husband as well. It seems Hatch did not survive the plunge into the freezing waters of the river and he is now for all intents and purposes very much dead. Or is he? Later he is miraculously resuscitated in the hospital by doctor Jonas Nyeburn (Alfred Molina) and his medical team, after we find out he was clinically dead for almost two hours. Hatch has a short glimpse of the afterlife before he is brought back to the amazement and joy of his family. But not all is great. Coming back from the dead has come with a price - Hatch begins to have flashes of brutal murders as they are taking place, and seeing them through the eyes of the killer, not unlike the film "Eyes Of Laura Mars" from 1978. This is the basic plot of "Hideaway" and although the story itself is interesting, there are many problems with the film.
For starters everyone besides Christine Lahti (who really gives an amazing performance) was terribly miscast. Goldblum, while largely succeeding in making his character likeable, has many moments where he overacts to the point of parody (for instance his delivery of the line "Just listen!" in a scene, where Hatch is having an argument with Lindsey is hilarious). Silverstone likewise is a near wreck as Hatch's daughter - other than being the cliched rebellious daughter and a spoilt brat, whose interests end with techno music, there is nothing much else about her character to make us even care if she is in danger or not. True, in her case, the script didn't give her much to do, other than be a whiny silly girl, but still... Jeremy Sisto as the killer didn't convince me either - again, a rather stereotypical villain, his character ended up being mostly a very annoying pretentious prick and not the monstrous frightening figure, the filmmakers were hoping for.
Another big problem, as already mentioned above, is the script. The whole subplot of the Harrisons having lost a daughter in the past and the impact of that tragic event upon their lives, has been mostly reduced to a short single scene, where Lindsey refuses to believe her husband's horrific visions of murder and explains them with the trauma inflicted by that loss. Oh yes, there is a brief vision of the accident happening and we also get to see for a second the face of the girl in Hatch's glimpse in the afterlife, as she whispers to him : "Daddy!". That's it. Really? That's the level of creativity here? Just feel the emotional weight of that scene, I dare you. And how about the subplot of Hatch's and Vassago's (the villain) both being corporeal vessels of angelic/demonic entities in the film's climax? With no logical clues leading to that conclusion (other than a lady psychic vaguely murmuring to Hatch "You crossed over. You brought something back"), the scene where we see their spiritual essences take some hilarious CGI-form and fight to the death, is simply put - atrocious. It erases every trace of thrill or enjoyment you might have had up until that point and transforms the whole thing into a parody.
Plot-holes? Sure, here is one particularly hilarious - based on one of his visions, Hatch writes down on a piece of paper a name of a hotel, in which subsequently we find out the killer finds temporary accommodation. The name of the hotel however is incomplete. This information finds its way in the hands of a private detective, who immediately locates the said hotel, even though the name wasn't quite right. Our protagonist Hatch however isn't so lucky and doesn't find the place until much later in the film, after he eventually learns the full name of the hotel. And that's not all. A cop /Kenneth Welsh/ investigating the murders and finding Hatch's statement of acquiring his information about the killings from his visions highly suspicious - he shows up twice to ask questions, well, surely he will be seen again in the end of the film when we reach the resolution, right? Nope, he doesn't appear again at all, in fact, when the villain is eventually defeated, they don't even bother with a scene of the police showing up. No, Hatch gathers his wife and daughter and...just leaves the crime scene. Happy end. End credits. And don't even get me started on the "surprise"/hidden ending after the credits.
To top it off, in some of the crucial and tense moments in the film, someone had the bright idea to insert 90's most irritating and disposable electronic music as a way to heighten up the tension. At best, it serves as a distraction, and does not complement the scenes in any way.
The conclusion? While not an absolute disgrace (it does have some good moments here and there - the car accident scene in the beginning I thought was handled pretty well) "Hideaway" remains a justly forgotten film, because it does not know how to convincingly tell a possibly good story, populates its' world with abysmally flat characters, loses tempo along the way, just to bring us to an absurd ending, devoid of any real payoff. Once again - not quite a disaster, but very forgettable - I myself forgot everything about this film, which I first think I saw around 7-8 years prior to this second viewing. So much for giving things a second chance.
"Hideaway" opens with a young man named Jeremy who has just killed his mother and sister and proceeds to impale himself upon a knife as part of a ritual to willingly damn his soul to hell and be accepted to serve Satan (or something to that extent). So far, so good. Not entirely original, but an effective and creepy opening. Then we are introduced to our main protagonist Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum), of whom we know relatively little - for example the film never bothers to explain what he does for a living (in the book he is an antiques dealer). We see that he has a loving family - wife Lindsey (Christine Lahti) and teenage daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone) and only later do we find out that Hatch and Lindsey had another daughter, who died tragically in a car accident. And speaking of car accident, shortly after we are introduced to the Harrisons (a cute little scene actually in which Regina's parents are playing a game of movie associations and try to get her to participate), another one takes place immediately after. Hatch is driving his wife and daughter somewhere in the night (we never find out where they are going), the car swerves out of the road and falls into the nearby river. Regina escapes just shortly before the car falls in the cold waters, but Lindsey and Hatch are trapped inside the vehicle. Lindsey survives the impact and manages to crawl out of the car, dragging her unconscious husband as well. It seems Hatch did not survive the plunge into the freezing waters of the river and he is now for all intents and purposes very much dead. Or is he? Later he is miraculously resuscitated in the hospital by doctor Jonas Nyeburn (Alfred Molina) and his medical team, after we find out he was clinically dead for almost two hours. Hatch has a short glimpse of the afterlife before he is brought back to the amazement and joy of his family. But not all is great. Coming back from the dead has come with a price - Hatch begins to have flashes of brutal murders as they are taking place, and seeing them through the eyes of the killer, not unlike the film "Eyes Of Laura Mars" from 1978. This is the basic plot of "Hideaway" and although the story itself is interesting, there are many problems with the film.
For starters everyone besides Christine Lahti (who really gives an amazing performance) was terribly miscast. Goldblum, while largely succeeding in making his character likeable, has many moments where he overacts to the point of parody (for instance his delivery of the line "Just listen!" in a scene, where Hatch is having an argument with Lindsey is hilarious). Silverstone likewise is a near wreck as Hatch's daughter - other than being the cliched rebellious daughter and a spoilt brat, whose interests end with techno music, there is nothing much else about her character to make us even care if she is in danger or not. True, in her case, the script didn't give her much to do, other than be a whiny silly girl, but still... Jeremy Sisto as the killer didn't convince me either - again, a rather stereotypical villain, his character ended up being mostly a very annoying pretentious prick and not the monstrous frightening figure, the filmmakers were hoping for.
Another big problem, as already mentioned above, is the script. The whole subplot of the Harrisons having lost a daughter in the past and the impact of that tragic event upon their lives, has been mostly reduced to a short single scene, where Lindsey refuses to believe her husband's horrific visions of murder and explains them with the trauma inflicted by that loss. Oh yes, there is a brief vision of the accident happening and we also get to see for a second the face of the girl in Hatch's glimpse in the afterlife, as she whispers to him : "Daddy!". That's it. Really? That's the level of creativity here? Just feel the emotional weight of that scene, I dare you. And how about the subplot of Hatch's and Vassago's (the villain) both being corporeal vessels of angelic/demonic entities in the film's climax? With no logical clues leading to that conclusion (other than a lady psychic vaguely murmuring to Hatch "You crossed over. You brought something back"), the scene where we see their spiritual essences take some hilarious CGI-form and fight to the death, is simply put - atrocious. It erases every trace of thrill or enjoyment you might have had up until that point and transforms the whole thing into a parody.
Plot-holes? Sure, here is one particularly hilarious - based on one of his visions, Hatch writes down on a piece of paper a name of a hotel, in which subsequently we find out the killer finds temporary accommodation. The name of the hotel however is incomplete. This information finds its way in the hands of a private detective, who immediately locates the said hotel, even though the name wasn't quite right. Our protagonist Hatch however isn't so lucky and doesn't find the place until much later in the film, after he eventually learns the full name of the hotel. And that's not all. A cop /Kenneth Welsh/ investigating the murders and finding Hatch's statement of acquiring his information about the killings from his visions highly suspicious - he shows up twice to ask questions, well, surely he will be seen again in the end of the film when we reach the resolution, right? Nope, he doesn't appear again at all, in fact, when the villain is eventually defeated, they don't even bother with a scene of the police showing up. No, Hatch gathers his wife and daughter and...just leaves the crime scene. Happy end. End credits. And don't even get me started on the "surprise"/hidden ending after the credits.
To top it off, in some of the crucial and tense moments in the film, someone had the bright idea to insert 90's most irritating and disposable electronic music as a way to heighten up the tension. At best, it serves as a distraction, and does not complement the scenes in any way.
The conclusion? While not an absolute disgrace (it does have some good moments here and there - the car accident scene in the beginning I thought was handled pretty well) "Hideaway" remains a justly forgotten film, because it does not know how to convincingly tell a possibly good story, populates its' world with abysmally flat characters, loses tempo along the way, just to bring us to an absurd ending, devoid of any real payoff. Once again - not quite a disaster, but very forgettable - I myself forgot everything about this film, which I first think I saw around 7-8 years prior to this second viewing. So much for giving things a second chance.