Hidden enemy

Sergeant Thomas Beck ( Michael Noory ) is investigating a strange series of crimes - recently in the city, completely harmless and non-conflict people suddenly turn into unprincipled scumbags who commit a series of brutal murders and armed robberies. When arrested, they offer such armed resistance that they ultimately die themselves. The last such person is Jack Devriz ( Chris Malki ), who robbed 8 banks and 6 stores and brutally killed 12 people and injured 23 more. After the robbery of another bank, the police chased him and finally ambushed him. However, despite the frenzied shoot-out of police officers, Devries only crashes his car’s explosion, and he with numerous wounds and burns ends up in St. Joseph’s hospital, where doctors shrug: Devries’s wounds are incompatible with life, but he’s still alive, although and in a coma. At the hospital, Devriz suddenly wakes up, after which a strange slug-like creature crawls out of his mouth and crawls into the mouth of his roommate, who is lying in a coma after a heart attack, Jonathan Miller ( William Boyett ), and Devriz dies after that. After some time, Miller came to his senses and escaped from the hospital, immediately starting to act: he was robbing an audio shop (where the tape recorder was stealing) and a car dealership (where the Ferrari was stealing), while simultaneously leaving behind the corpses of those who had tried to resist him. Biting once in a cafe, he sees on TV a report on the upcoming visit to the city of Senator Holt ( John McCann ), the presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, Beck is accosted by an FBI agent from Seattle, Lloyd Gallagher ( Kyle McLachlan ), who claims to be looking for Devriz because he killed his partner. Upon learning that Devrez was admitted to the hospital, he hurries there, but finds only the corpse of Devriz and Miller’s empty bunk. His behavior seems to Beck very strange: Gallagher, very confusedly explaining the essence of his case, claims that now they will have to track down Miller. Although Gallagher himself tells Beck that Devries and Miller were supposedly accomplices, Beck realizes that he is lying, but so far follows his advice. Later in the evening, he invites Gallagher to have dinner at his house with his wife Barbara ( Catherine Cannon ), where Gallagher again shows oddities: for starters, he feels a strange feeling when he sees Beck Julie's daughter ( Kristen Clayton ), and Julie herself also experiences his strange feeling (later he will tell her parents that she is “very special”), then at dinner itself it turns out that Gallagher is completely unable to drink alcohol, which is why he quickly becomes ill. He very difficult to answer questions about where he was born and raised, but nevertheless reports that he had a wife and daughter, whom "he was killed by the one who killed his partner."

That same evening, Miller entered the strip club, where a monster from his body moved to the stripper Brenda ( Claudia Christian ). Brenda is hiding, incidentally killing a guy who accidentally turned up during sex and stealing his car. During the chase, Beck and Gallagher overtake Brenda and engage in a shootout with her, during which Beck witnesses very strange things: they manage to drive Brenda to the roof of a local store, but Brenda, after receiving many bullet wounds, remains completely unharmed. Already on the roof, she suddenly turns to Gallagher (who at that moment takes out a strange, pistol-like device) as if she were well acquainted with him, and, saying that "she will not come out," jumps down, breaking herself to death. However, the monster moves into the nearby dog ​​of Police Lieutenant Masterson ( Clarence Falder ). Beck calls Gallagher to account, but he refuses to give any explanation, saying that this will not help Beck to catch the one they are looking for, and then Beck orders him to be arrested. Gallagher calmly reacts to this. That night, Beck was informed that the FBI had answered his request: Lloyd Gallagher died a month ago in the Seattle area during one of the forest fires, and the man impersonating Gallagher was his partner Robert Stone (also considered dead, but his the body was not found).

Beck decides to interrogate the “Gallagher” and he tells him a fantastic story: Devriz, Miller, Brenda and the rest became victims of an alien monster, whom he has been hunting for 9 years. Beck, this story seems ridiculous and "Gallagher" goes back to the camera. Meanwhile, the monster moves from Masterson’s dog to Masterson himself and the next morning he comes to the station for the Gallagher. At the same time, a local expert accidentally shots out, as it turned out, the Gallagher beam pistol and breaks the wall of the site, causing a big commotion. Masterson takes Beck hostage and demands to take him to the Gallagher, incidentally mentioning their shootout with Brenda, which is why Beck is horrified that the Gallagher was telling the truth. He manages to break away from the Masterson and return the weapon to the Gallagher. The shootout that followed reveals that the “Gallagher” is actually a law enforcement officer of Alhag from the planet Altair , on which the monster killed his partner and family, and that modulation of the Gallagher’s weapons can kill the monster only when it is outside the carrier’s body.

Ultimately, the Masterson is killed, but the monster manages to get into the body of Detective Willis ( Ed O'Ross ), who then goes to meet with Senator Holt, arranging a shootout and getting to his target, injuring Beck. "Gallagher," armed with a self-made flamethrower confiscated from one of the detainees, rushes to the senator's speech. Despite the fire of the guards and the wounds he received, he reaches the senator, burning his body. When a monster is finally selected from a charred corpse, the Gallagher destroys it from its weapon. Later in the hospital, the hospitalized Gallagher sees Barbara being killed in the corridor because Beck is in a dying coma. Then the “Gallagher” moves into it in a similar way, but here it is shown that it represents another entity - a kind of energy being. Doctors find Beck who has regained consciousness and the dead body of the Gallagher. In the final frame, Beck, who now has the consciousness of “Gallagher,” reaches out to Julie and she takes it in response.

Kyle McLachlan was approved literally on the eve of filming. He did not get along with Michael Nuri and although both of them really liked the script, both of them said at the audition that they agreed to act, but not together. Claudia Christian claims that the producers found her breasts visually inappropriate and therefore all of her costumes in the film were designed to emphasize her sexuality.

Rewards

Sitges Science Fiction Film Festival , 1987:

• Best Actor (Michael Noory)
• Prize of the international jury of critics

Science Fiction Film Festival in Avoriaz , 1988 - Grand Prix

Fantasporto Festival , 1988 - Best Director (Jack Scholder)

Nominations

Sitges Science Fiction Film Festival , 1987 - Best Movie

Saturn Prize , 1988 :

• Best sci-fi movie
• Best Director (Jack Scholder)
• Best Screenplay (Jim Kauf)
• Best Actor (Michael Noory)

Festival "Fantasporto" , 1988 - Best Film ^[1]

According to the portal Rotten Tomatoes , 77% of the 22 studied critical reviews rated the film positively, with an average score of 6.9 / 10 ^[2] . According to a columnist for Variety magazine, "Hidden Enemy" is a well-designed thriller, which in the end becomes "completely ordinary science fiction" ^[3] . Roger Ebert, in a review for the Chicago Sun-Times, rated the film 3 stars out of 4, calling it “surprisingly spectacular.” ^[4]

• The Hidden Enemy on the Internet Movie Database
• Hidden Enemy on allmovie
• The Hidden Enemy at Rotten Tomatoes