Thoughts on Hideaway

On Hulu on July 2021, I watched Hideaway, this 1995 thriller starring Jeff Goldblum as a guy who is brought back to life after having died in a car accident (the car swerves to avoid hitting a truck, rolls backwards down a hill into a river, and his wife manages to free both of them and drag his body across the current to land), and he has a psychic connection with a serial killer (Jeremy Sisto, looking like a 90s Kylo Ren) who is murdering teen girls and going after Goldblum’s daughter Alicia Silverstone. It was decent, definitely more of a mid-level straight to video thriller.

It gets really ridiculous in the near-death scenes, where both the killer and Goldblum nearly die, and the killer’s hell is full of bad 90s CGI that looks like a horrible mix of The Lawnmower Man and Spawn. Goldblum’s heaven is more slow-motion and sentimental, and seeing the creepy photorealistic version of his first daughter, who was accidentally killed when she was hit by a car.

There’s a joke that I thought was a Clueless reference, but I’m not sure. Goldblum and his wife (Christine Lahti) have a game where they name a movie, its actor, the movie they were in, and another actor in it, and so forth. They try this with their daughter to name someone in Bonnie & Clyde, but she doesn’t know the movie. So they name more stuff, and get to Cher, and the dad says to his daughter “You must know something Cher was in.” She doesn’t respond, but I thought “Your Clueless character?” These movies likely got made in 1994, but I don’t know in what order, so it’s either intentional or a coincidence.

Jeremy Sisto was the best part of this movie. Despite seeing his name in the opening credits, I didn’t recognize him, and didn’t realize it was him until way later into the movie. He really got into the intensity and holding long stares, utilizing his deep voice, and felt the most committed to his part. Goldblum was fine, but I can’t really see him as a suburban family man/dad type, he comes off as too eccentric for that, and Silverstone seemed to just have a “whatever” vibe to her part and not really be into it.

Also, there’s a post-credits scene where they do a dream fake-out of the killer supposedly being alive, and then the couple play their movie game again.