I’m feeling pretty good walking into this one, folks…it’s pretty safe to say the Dog’s been outed after last night’s misery romp through the tulips that was Clive Barker‘s newest chunk of garbage, and so we’re seguing into the more experiment bits of the After Dark Horrorfest.

Today we’ve got a bit of a surprise on our plates as we tackle Hidden, which is actually a Norwegian import.  The Scandinavians have often impressed me with their horror in the past (I’m still very fond of The Substitute, a Danish import that packed in the laughs as well as the scares).

Hidden follows KK, a guy who’s returning home following the recent death of his mother.  Though the two weren’t on the best of terms, KK is the lone survivor of the estate, and thus has inherited all.  He goes back to the house he grew up in and discovers things aren’t looking so good out there, and that Mom herself may not be quite as dead as he’d like.

The early going for Hidden–the first half hour or so,  is downright freaky, with lots of terrific tension building sequences coupled with a bass-heavy soundtrack that seems to throb with menace all by itself.

The remaining hour, meanwhile, will not be quite as freaky but still will bring some scares.  They had to do something like exposition at some point, so that does drag down the creepiness a bit.

Hidden may be far from the best After Dark Horrorfest title I’ve seen (Perkins’ 14 makes this movie look like a sick old woman) but there’s no denying that it’s creepy enough for two regular movies.  It specializes in psychological horror, and that’s a downright rarity in today’s gore-for-gore’s-sake filmmaking in horror.

Of course, I would’ve liked it if they’d been a little more sensitive–English subtitles were appreciated, no mistake, but surely they could’ve done a couple more languages in audio.  But this is a very small quibble in an overall well put together package.

The Screenhead Ten Scale sees no reason to keep this one, well, Hidden, and thus hands Hidden a six out of ten for being decent, if not necessary great.