MY CALL: Great cast. Super cheesy CGI effects. Not the best writing. I’m not recommending this. But as a broad film fan it was really cool seeing a Jeff Goldblum thriller-horror I’d never heard of that also features a pre-Clueless (1994) Jeremy Sisto and Alicia Silverstone. MORE MOVIES LIKE Hideaway: For more 90s thrillers with thematic crossing-over themes, consider Unforgettable (1996), Body Parts (1991), and Flatliners (1990).
Adapted from Dean Koontz’ original story, Brett Leonard (Virtuosity, The Lawnmower Man, The Dead Pit) brings his best Lawnmower Man CGI effects game as a teen Jeremy Sisto sacrifices himself to the Dark Lord and his soul is shredded in what I can only describe as a “90s computer game Hellscape.” How’s that for a cold open?
After an essentially fatal car accident, father and husband Hatch (Jeff Goldblum; Mr. Frost, The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) is revived in the emergency room with an experimental drug. Grateful to for his second chance at life, Hatch soon discovers the cost comes in the form of strange waking visions including murdering young girls and building a Satanic scaffolding monolith from scrap metal… because, why not, right?
Hatch had begun to cross to the other side when he was dying, and when his doctor saved him, something ‘came back’ with him. Something that doesn’t belong. And as Hatch comes to learn this and seeks to hunt the origin of this evil force down; the evil likewise senses Hatch. By the way, this evil is apparently Jeremy Sisto! By all accounts he should be dead… but, then the movie said “nope, not dead” so now he’s free to murder people, I guess.
Likewise fresh on way to the fame of Clueless (1995), Alicia Silverstone (Alicia Silverstone; The Lodge, The Crush) plays Hatch’s teenage daughter Regina. Rounding out the cast, Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark) plays his savior doctor and Christine Lahti plays his wife.
This very much feels like a TV movie that pushes the envelope when it comes to on-screen murder. The blood and gashes are nothing particularly gory. But they get the point across. Still, I find this R-rated thriller more like a quasi-thrilling TV-MA show whose entire season I don’t think I’d finish.
In the end, CGI computer game Satan comes to reclaim his escaped fugitive soul (Jeremy Sisto) and the colorful blob of hideous CGI-gasm was, well, actually hilariously bad. That was definitely the best/worst part of this movie.
It was fun seeing a Jeff Goldblum movie I’d somehow never heard of… but now that this is behind me, so is this movie. Not recommended.