In honor of BIFFF, (the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival), this time out I’m having a look at a Norwegian horror film on the festival program. Presented for your reading pleasure we have “Skjult” aka “Hidden”, fresh to your Favorite Catgirl Movie Fanatic by way of it’s recent Region 1 DVD release.
Our synopsis goes: “Following a bizarre accident on a desert road and an odd encounter with another boy about the same age, KK (Kristoffer Joner) returns to his hometown after a long period of estrangement. It’s a cozy yet slightly spooky place, a rural locale with a massive waterfall, surrounded by a daunting forest, and filled with unpleasant memories: the memory of the abusive mother who practically drove KK away, and who is now mercifully dead. In her will, she left KK a home in the heart of the woods; entering the house and coming face-to-face with disturbing memories conjures up torrents of evil that lurk inside of KK – malice that he suppressed for years but that now manifests itself with devastating force.”
Hmmmmm? So what the heck is going on in this one, anyway? Ghosts? Crazy maniac killer on the loose? A traumatized boy grown into psychotic manhood? I don’t know exactly what this one is all about, but I guess well all find out, won’t we? Let’s “Read On” and see…..
“Skjult” gets going right away by introducing us to our main character Kai Koss, nicknamed KK (played by Kristoffer Joner), who has returned to the small town were he was born and raised to see to the estate of his recently deceased mother. Only one problem….. she was an evil psycho mother from hell who spent her time torturing her son in a secret underground room in the cellar of her home waaaay out in the woods. Our hero escaped from her of course….. as we see in an initial flashback scene…. but that’s a problem plot wise for this lil’ Catgirl. Everybody seems to know all about KK’s terrible secret…. they feel sorry for him, especially his old friend Sara (played by Cecilie A. Mosli) now sheriff of the town…. but then how was his mother still running around free if that were the case? 
It’s only one of a number of basic plot problems that plague this one…. but more on those in a moment.
Kai has all the making of one of those quiet troubled loners that seem to populate horror films of this type. He’s withdrawn and friendless, despite an appearance of wealth, he seems to have no real happiness of any kind, just an empty husk of an existence. From the flashback we get an understanding of why his 
childhood home invokes such dread in him that the first thing he wants to do with the old place is to take two jerrycans of gasoline and burn it to the ground.
It’s certainly a creepy old house…. and director Pål Øie fills it with plenty of disturbing images…. especially the giant pile of bandaged dolls in the corner of the living room…. but despite all those neat ideas, gives us a story that doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense. I know, I know…. we are possibly seeing all this through the eyes of a very traumatized (and probably not to mentally stable) man, but some stuff just just makes no sense at all from a narrative standpoint. However, that means it’s “Spoiler Alert” time…. ’cause I can’t really dig into why these fail so badly without giving away quite a bit of the plot.
We’ve already mentioned that seemingly Kai’s mother was able to torture him till he escaped her evil clutches but somehow never got arrested or prosecuted for it….. a big point if his experiences are so well know as to have created the aura of “urban legend” that follows his return to town. There’s also the repeated image of the two boys from the night of his escape…. If Kai is the one who got away, then how was his mother able to “replace” him by kidnapping the other successfully? 
There’s the stupid story that the other boy fell from the area’s famous waterfall, but again, Kai saw his mother abduct him so why didn’t police bother to look in the cellar torture room to see if he was in there…. assuming Kai told the story of his captivity to… well… like ANYBODY to explain why he ran away. Nope.
Ok… Ok…. then there’s the “Guy in the Red Hoodie”. Supposedly our missing boy who was taken from the wreck site of his parents death to replace Kai. If he’s been haunting the house, lurking there for 19 years of so… or even since the mother’s death…. why have there been no other deaths or disappearances till Kai comes home? Ahhhh, you say…. there is no “Guy in the Red Hoodie”…. it’s all in Kai’s head…. 
So how do people die when Kai is unable to do the whole “split personality” bit…. like when he’s with Sara while one of her deputies gets killed?
These questions just don’t seem to go away, no matter how much you think about them and no amount of atmosphere or imagery can make them seem like they were planned either. Other elements are just annoying. Like the entire idea that the locals all seem to hate Kai. For what reason? None that I can see…. and none that is ever explained…. 
with the exception of one local thug who might possibly see tortured Kai as a rival for Sara’s affections. (Something which never becomes an issue anyway….. so why include it?)
Want more inexplicable plot items? How about the local hotel decorated by the cast of “Twin Peaks”…. and the strange brunette at the reception desk who might or might not want to get all slutty with Kai. Just what in heck is her role in this story? Neither Carolyn or I could figure it out…… 
The ending? Well… we finally get to see the “Guy in the Red Hoodie” at last (But no clue if he’s real or imaginary)…. and there’s a small nod to Norman Bates and “Psycho” as KK is driven away in handcuffs which was nice, but ever so unsatisfying overall….
Sigh…. All in all it’s a shame, cause this one really does have some fairly pretty visuals with quite a bit of striking imagery. The whole idea of the psychological horror that Kai went through has possibilities too. Unfortunately just too much of “Skjult” just doesn’t hang together in a way that makes you see this as a terrible hallucination hidden within a tragic reality….. It’s a well made film just not a well told one.
Given this, “Skjult” gets barely a rating of 3 “Meows” out of 5 from this lil’ Catgirl…. saved only by those aforementioned gorgeous visual elements and some competent acting, especially on the part of Kristoffer Joner. I would say it’s worth a watch… but for true horror fans, it’s more a rental than a must buy. Thank goodness I waited till Region 1 for this one, I’d have felt a bit cheated to have imported it myself from Region 2. Still… Norway has done good by Neko with the likes of “Fritt Vilt”, so I’m willing to forgive them for the occasional letdown. I guess it’s “Better luck next time”, for this lil’ Catgirl…..
Of course there’s a Trailer…. isn’t there always a Trailer? Enjoy!!
Nekoneko's Movie Litterbox 
Hm, there are some subtle key elements you could’ve delved into here, so I’m not sure you gave this film the credit it deserves….after some reading, my favorite interpretation is that the mother killed KK and then kept Peter…(downing in the bathtub, all those flashbacks?). That would explain why grown up KK looks soooo much like young Peter, and why young KK looks like red hoodie boy. So, she kills her son, and locks up Peter, who eventually escapes, but not before he’s pretty effed in the head. So, he comes backs to town, Sara says “damn you’ve really changed” (cuz he’s not the same kid she knew), and more than once he asked “don’t you remember me?”, no ,he doesn’t, cuz he’s not KK. But the man in the red hoodie is all in his imagination, they’re the same person, he’s the killer lots of references to that. You mention him killing a deputy when he’s with Sara, but I don’t recall that, I remember her not being around when those things happen, but maybe I need to rewatch.
And ,yeah, you say “this lil’ catgirl” waayyyy too much. First time at your site, but you come across to me as one of those really socially awkward anime fans, the kind you can peg a mile away. I know the cat thing’s your gimmick, but intelligent people would take you more seriously if you downplayed that a bit, just my 2 cents :3.
Oh, and sorry to read about your cat
Hmmmm? That’s an interesting take on this one…. and it actually does explain much of what sort of flew by me. I usually figure with a foreign film that ofttimes I’m at the mercy of the subtitles….. which can be a good translation or a bad one… but which ultimately miss things that are culturally specific. Often it’s like being subjected to an “in-joke” that just makes you go “Huh?”
Hahaha!! “Socially awkward”? That’s sort of me alright…. The whole “Catgirl” thing goes waaaaay back to my Cosplay days back in college and although I haven’t worn the “Ears & Tail” in years, it’s a part of my life I still fondly remember and the identity has stuck even though I’m now a grown up woman with a boring daily life (for the most part, anyway…)
Being taken seriously has never been something I’ve worried about. The “Litterbox” is a place of fun and whimsy for me where I can loosen up and be a bit playful while sharing my goofy love of weird foreign film…. but I can definitely see where I might just be considered frivolous and flighty (possibly even more than slightly insane or in need of medication…) by a first time visitor. Oh well…. in my late 30’s I’m far too old to change now, Hehehehe!!
Even so… I’m still glad to have you stop by, and I hope at least you might have found out about some film maybe you never knew existed, if so I’ve accomplished my mission!
Just saw the movie and was as perplexed as ‘Nekoneko’ as to the plot, it’s take on twists, and the sad lack of ‘meat’ left from this horror soup…it had huge potential and I didn’t give up on it, until the end……and was left wondering “what just happened?” Hence, that is why I am here a year later, looking for some understanding….I have discovered that is is none……there is always another ‘flick’ around the corner………..
Yep… watched this one again not too long ago when it came on TV, but for the life of me, it still didn’t make all that much more sense this time out.
Ah well… not all of them do, and life’s too short to waste time when, as you say, there’s always another movie right around the corner clamoring for me to give it a try.
Anyway… thanks for dropping in Madison, and I hope you enjoy my goofy ramblings here at the ol’ “Litterbox”. Maybe you’ll find a movie that interests you more…
Just saw “Hidden” last night. Your interpretation helps, esp. the observation that it is a well made movie, but not well told. The plot leaves too many holes and inconsistencies- the biggest of which, for me anyway, was “why does everybody hate KK?” He was what, 11 or so when he escaped? And now it’s 19 years later and he’s 30- So what on earth did he do in those 19 years to earn such hostility? And where has he been? I assume that pre-teens don’t live on their own in Norway and that the government provides for them somehow. There was no investigation about why this kid ran away from his mom and there was no intervention in the torture that everyone seems to know about?
One thing I noticed that you could flesh out:
The director includes lots of nods to other haunted house/ insane main slasher movies. The bouncing red ball is a reference to “The Changeling.” The creepy bartender serving him shots and refusing payment is a reference to “The Shining.” You caught the reference to Pyscho at the end. All of which hint that the red hoodie killer is imaginary.
Also, I wonder if the dirty black haired kid and the blond kid were supposed to be one person? Cut off the blonde hair and dirty him up and they’re identical. The scene with the dirty black haired kid could be mental dissasociation, with the imprisoned kid looking back in on himself. This fits with the Pyscho reference.
The poorly told plot makes such a mess of things that it’s impossible to know what was intended. Frustrating.
Why “Hellow there Mike!!” 😉
Always nice to have somebody pop in for a look at one of my older reviews and leave a comment, especially such a well thought-out one. Sorry it’s taken this wee Catgirl a couple of days to get back to you, but things have been super crazy for me these last few weeks…. Sigh….
Yes, I have to say I found this one mostly a disappointment overall, even with it’s attempts to have all those little homages to old films…. It just didn’t really work that well for me as I remember. But then that’s sometimes the way of it when you watch a foreign film… (at least this one was plenty foreign to me.)