Eighties Horror Film Seen as Blueprint for Age of Possession, Writer Argues

THE INTERNET — A weekly film night held in honor of what he calls Secret Shocktober has led Christopher Knowles, author of the Substack The Secret Sun, to a sweeping conclusion. Writing on October 26, he reports that a viewing of the 1987 picture 'The Hidden' struck him as 'a tidy allegory' of the present day.

The film, as Mr. Knowles summarizes it, stars Kyle MacLachlan as a benevolent alien, in effect an angel, who pursues an insectoid criminal that hops from one human host to another. MacLachlan's character borrows the identity of an FBI agent and partners with a Los Angeles detective played by Michael Nouri. Mr. Knowles finds the performance strongly reminiscent of Agent Cooper in 'Twin Peaks,' and cites a MovieWeb passage noting the similarity. He also compares it to witness accounts of Men in Black in John Keel's book 'The Mothman Prophecies.'

The author traces the film's descendants: the 1998 Denzel Washington thriller 'Fallen,' an Outer Limits episode called 'Free Spirit,' and two X-Files episodes said to have borrowed the bug-from-the-mouth motif. He adds a fond survey of the late-1990s apocalyptic movie cycle, and a postscript on 'Lost Souls.'

The tone turns graver in the closing sections. Mr. Knowles writes that he cannot otherwise explain what he describes as an unceasing parade of public meltdowns and random violent crimes. He acknowledges that many attribute these to mental illness, but holds that the term fails to explain them. He concedes that some will label his own belief a form of mental illness, a charge he says he no longer cares about.

He further suggests that the elaborate public occult rituals he has chronicled for twenty years were in fact conjurings of what the Greeks called kakodaemonic entities. He says he has argued since the death of Chris Cornell that the world has entered one of history's periodic apocalyptic eras.

His prescription is communal: readers should stop retreating into their cocoons and 'find the others.' Apocalypse, he adds, is another word for disclosure, and he predicts a new state of awareness ahead, provided the Fallen are kept out.