Hidden

2005 "If you go down to the woods today..."
4| 1h33m| en| More Info
Released: 03 December 2005 Released
Producted By: Infinite Films
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Deep within a dark, twisted forest, at a faraway adventure camp, a group of young 'camp leaders' play a fast and furious game of 'hide and seek'. The atmosphere is strange and thick with tension - there is a feeling in the air that all is not well. Alliances are formed; relationships are tested, and in some cases disintegrate to the point of violence. All the while they are being watched by someone... or something. In a spectacular climax, the mystery begins to unravel as everything becomes suddenly and painfully clear. The shocking, violent truth is far worse than could ever have been imagined...

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Reviews

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious
Listonixio Fresh and Exciting
Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
Alex Murphy Hidden is one of those movies that has a lot of promise, but doesn't deliver like it should.The movie starts off well, with a well shot sequence of the characters scrambling through the forest. The early movie also does a good job of presenting pieces of information through character dialogue that the viewer has to add together.Problems occur as the movie progresses. The pacing remains the same throughout the movie rather than picking up towards the movies climax, so the end product feels monotonous. None of the characters are particularly appealing. Elements go unexplained. The effects shots, although practical and done mainly through a variety of camera techniques, are overdone and cartoonish. The movie makes good use of a variety of shots and camera angles, but these are introduced almost immediately, there's nothing kept for the end of the movie to make it stand out. At one point almost all that can be heard is the sound of wind rushing over a microphone which, although it's supposed to add to the drama of the scene, is just distracting.Hidden is based around a good (although somewhat familiar) idea. The problem is in the execution. The fact that this is the first large-scale production for the director shows.
oooMILESooo To be honest, I didn't know what I was in for when I rented this film. Sometimes you come across the most unimaginable films, with p!ss poor story and even worse dialog!It was around 1am, I put the DVD. {The cover is bit chilling)....... but no horror/ thrills came, nothing... It was like when you rent a movie from the local shop thinking its just an underrated film, but instead you have been tricked by the cover and it's one of those painful amateur films that the shop made the same mistake purchasing it to rent!BUT!!!!!I thought the intensity was there, it kept racing along! I really enjoyed the camera work, and a few days later after watching the behind the scenes I really admired the director for the choice of camera mounts! I thought the film as a whole lacked a little substance/climax, but great work considering budget and actors! The dialog was interesting at parts, and some characters really grabbed me, even made me laugh out loud! There were enough characters for at least one of them to work! Great job on the final sequence and also the stunts! Thought that it was well put together and had a flow! Keep going, and would like to enjoy another film from this type of artist!
eeesoeuoa This movie is kinda vaguely like the Blair witch project but much much more boring and not even vaguely scary.I kept watching because some comments said it gets better as it goes on. They lied. Well I guess it did get better, after all it couldn't get much worse, but even better was pitiful.It's the kind of movie that I might watch if it was on TV and there was nothing else on and I was too tired to get up and find the remote, but I would not suggest that anyone should rent this movie.The only plus point I can see is it would have been very low budget. The scenes were probably real NZ bush and old buildings, there were no special effects, no big actors. Some of the camera work was fairly good otherwise I would have said it was made by a third form (13 year olds) drama class.As others have said you do get to know the individuals a bit and the twist at the end was unexpected but all in all not really worth watching.
MrRazorz I rented this DVD partly because it's a thriller (and I'm really into those at the moment) and partly because it's an independent New Zealand film that I hadn't heard of before. Hidden did the film festival circuit last year and won several international awards (including Best Feature at the Harlem International Film Festival, the Rebelfest Director's Award and the FAIF Best Director Award) before its limited local release last February, but it's on DVD that most of New Zealanders will get to know it. Tim McLachlan (the film's writer, director and producer) is pretty much an unknown even in his native country (although he was Ian McKellan's stunt double in Lord of the Rings) but if there's any justice in the world he'll be making a name for himself from this debut.I'll admit that I was a little put off by the premise – a group of teenage camp leaders go out into the bush to play hide & seek one afternoon, and scary stuff starts happening to them in the woods. Scary stuff happening to teenagers in the bush is a fairly well-trodden plot for New Zealand thrillers (the best example being the classic Bridge To Nowhere back in the 80s), not to mention for horror/thrillers in general, but I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. Besides, playing hide & seek in the bush is something that just about every New Zealand kid/teenager's done at some point, so it kind of speaks to the national psyche. Crawling through wet "cutty grass" with mud smeared all up your pants, trying to keep out of sight and wishing you'd worn a darker jumper, itching from a dozen mozzie bites and hoping you don't sit on a tree weta… This is the stuff that Kiwi childhoods are made of, and when you see an unlucky movie character slide down a wet bank and land in the creek you know exactly how he feels.I'll also admit that the film doesn't start off terribly well. You're about ten minutes in before you hear a single line of dialogue, and the first twenty minutes or so seems to consist mainly of people running around and hiding in the bush (actually, there's a great deal of that throughout the movie). There are approximately a dozen main characters to get to know, which isn't easy when all they're doing is chasing each other through the undergrowth and climbing up trees. There's a lot of stylish camera work (most of it done very simply with home-made wooden rigs and clever editing – watch the "Behind The Scenes" featurette for a lesson in independent film-making) and a generally creepy overtone, but not a lot in the way of plot or character development for the first half hour or so.But be patient with the slow start and and stick it out, because it gets a lot better. As the film goes on, you start to realise that you ARE slowly getting to know the characters (and starting to care about them) simply by their behaviour and their reactions to each other. The film gives up its secrets slowly as you observe the characters and solve their little mysteries. Why does Carlos seem to hate Mark, and why is Brooke so edgy around the both of them? What happened to Imogen when she was a little girl? Why is Isabelle so morbidly obsessed with the graveyard? Why does Mark keep hearing his dead grandfather's voice as he goes deeper and deeper into the woods? And how are they all connected to Emily, a little girl who drowned in the creek years ago and whose ghost is now rumoured to haunt the camp? There's an air of mystery surrounding them all, and McLachlan trusts his audience enough to let us solve it all for ourselves rather than hitting us over the head with each plot point. For example, there's a rather well-turned sub-plot involving one of the girls and the creepy caretaker, which relies on the audience's assumptions - and society's suspicious nature - to provide the necessary tension and resolution.The payoff comes in the final ten minutes or so – this is one of those movies where everything suddenly falls into place in one scene. The "surprise" at the end isn't terribly original – though it pays to remember that this film was shot in 2001 and spent three-and-a-half years in troublesome post-production before being released, so it's kind of coming in after its time. Besides, the twist is managed covincingly enough – and with enough respect for the audience's intelligence – that it still packs a pretty good punch. This is especially true for a New Zealand audience, as the film's climax is almost certainly based on an unfortunate event in our recent history. I won't say any more, but you'll know what I mean when you watch it.For a movie that was shot in the bush on a shoestring budget with a film student cast who doubled as crew, this is a surprisingly slick and powerful little thriller which proves once again that imagination, talent and Kiwi ingenuity is worth more than all the digital orcs and giant monkeys in the world. Not only will it give you the jitters, but you'll probably shed a tear or two by the end. Highly recommended.

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