It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

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.

Hidden is a classic example of what happens when someone makes a short film idea last for 90mins. With the odd piece of dialogue here and there we mostly get footage of people playing hide and seek, most of which is people running, people over reacting to being found you know the classic things that happen when there is no clear or actual narrative.Some of the camera work was OK, however the over bright white effect got annoying quick as did the Shaky cam.Now on to the misleading part, the cover art is hugely misleading, one it makes it look like a horror film, it isn't it is an alternative art house film, from the red eyed person on the front you would think it is something similar to Blair witch and the Ring. The only similarity is they all suck.The ending twist was remarkably predictable, lets see, people in an unrealistic situation, acting very oddly, well clearly something about them all is off, so either they are Aliens, Monsters, or dead. Considering how the film is shot in the over white effect, the answer was clearly they are all dead...perhaps the oldest "twist" in the book next to "it turns out it's man!".If it was a 15 minute film I would give it a good rating, but clearly it shows the director is unable to tell if a story can actually play out for that length of time. The characters are bland, with very little dialogue, in fact, there is really only an escalation of dialogue after the 40minute mark, till then it is pretty much people running, but don't worry after the 40min mark, people still run for the majority of the film.Dull as dishwater.

This is coming from a NZ'er, so I've seen a fair bit of films from this country in my time, saying that, most of them have completely bored me, or irritated me. However, I was so very pleasantly surprised with Hidden, I was impressed with how good they managed to make the film on as I would suspect a low budget, of course having the scenery is a bonus.Another thing as well, most of the actors I had never heard of before, I think it might have been only two people from shortland street (wow!). Which in my opinion was very surprising. Both people acted very superficial and professional. I was astounded at the storyline, the whole plot kept me captivated because I had absolutely NO idea what was going on, the characters were special in one way or another, you got to understand them well and sympathize if they got hurt or died. Some even gave me the creeps, the guy with the sore lip especially confused me, when I saw him do the whole act around the tree part I was thinking "oh no, he's going to end up an alien, just like that movie where the woman loses her son and everything's a mystery and suddenly there's people jumping through ceilings." But I soon realized it was nothing like that, and it had a much more appealing twist to it. One thing that worried me was there was barely no communication with the group of campers, but in the end it didn't bother me because just their actions, the close-up's of the girls faces, the expressions, it was incredibly masterful and artistic. It was like a new kind of interaction.I loved this movie, the odd feeling of confusion it gave me at the end, that almost uncomfortable sensation, it's wonderful when a film makes you feel so much.Whoever compared this to the Blair witch project must have been on crack, and I am bewildered to the fact it has such a low rating. This is one of the best movies NZ has ever made.

I really enjoyed Hidden for what it was - a no budget digital feature made on the back of writer/director and stuntman Tim McLachlan (who is one of New Zealands best stunt men and a Director with a bright future).You have to admit it's got some mean stunts! And I don't think a 13 year old could get those performances out of the actors! There was some choice acting by Hayley Halliday (played Brooke), Kiel McNaughton (played Mark) and Luke Peary (played Carl) and all the other actors were really easy to watch and likable.I'm curious as to weather people know just how hard it is to write a film, shoot it, edit it, and do post production all on your own because you have no budget?!Hidden won 4 awards at over seas festivals and was nominated for an award at the 2006 New Zealand Film Awards. And I can see why but I guess its a matter of taste - can't please everyone! I highly recommend renting it!