MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Hideaway’ Wastes Its Thrills and Chills

“Hideaway” is not for the faint of heart. It is for the faint of mind.

Jeff Goldblum plays Hatch Harrison, who apparently dies in a car accident only to be brought back from “the other side” by a crack team of resuscitators. His wife, Lindsey (Christine Lahti), who also survived the accident with their daughter, Regina (Alicia Silverstone), doesn’t quite know what to make of the new Hatch. As soon as he leaves the hospital he gets touchier and touchier. But he’s got a right. His doctor (Alfred Molina) counsels Lindsay to stay calm. “He’s really on edge. You know, dying and all.”

It’s too bad that the resuscitators who worked on Hatch couldn’t have worked their wonders on “Hideaway.” The film may be full of wormy whiz-bang vortex effects but it’s near-dead. The plot has something to do with a spiritual connection between another once-dead guy, Vassago (Jeremy Sisto), a serial-killing Satanist who specializes in virgin sacrifice--with Regina at the top of his wish list.

Hatch sees murders through Vassago’s eyes, Vassago sees more mundane stuff through Hatch’s eyes--he is, after all, an antique dealer. The family’s deceased daughter--a hit-and-run victim--reappears to Hatch in his voyagings. If you ran the scripts for the “Poltergeist” movies and “Resurrection” and “Eyes of Laura Mars” and “The Omen” through a shredder, you might end up with “Hideaway.”

Maybe that’s just what director Brett (“Lawnmower Man”) Leonard and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and Neil Jimenez did. Or is Dean Koontz, whose novel sparked this mess, the culprit?

The supernatural effects are meant to be state-of-the-art interactive, but a little of this movie’s woozy candy-colored spiraling between life and death goes a long way. The film’s conception of the afterlife resembles sea-sickness.

Are we supposed to recognize Hatch’s ordeal as a parental guilt trip? Does he represent the backwash of the ‘60s? (He describes his post-death heebie-jeebies as “acid flashbacks.” Bummer.) Goldblum doesn’t do anything ordinary in this movie, and neither does Lahti. And yet these two wonderful actors seem pinioned by all the rampaging dumbness.

You get the feeling they would have killed to play this one as a comedy.

* MPAA rating: R, for terror violence, language and a scene of sexuality. Times guidelines: It includes lots of up - close bloodletting.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Hideaway’ Jeff Goldblum: Hatch Harrison Christine Lahti: Lindsey Harrison Alicia Silverstone: Regina Harrison Jeremy Sisto: Vassago A TriStar release of an S/Q production. Director Brett Leonard. Producers Jerry Baerwitz, Agatha Hanczakowski. Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and Neil Jimenez, from the Dean Koontz novel. Cinematographer Gail Tattersall. Editor B. J. Sears. Music Trevor Jones. Production design Michael Bolton. Costume designer Monique Prudhomme. Set decorator Elizabeth Wilcox. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.