Buy it... if you don't mind typical, shrieking explosions of terror in an otherwise very mellow and underwhelming score.

Avoid it... if you consider most generic and mundane suspense scores to be lifeless and uninspiring.

Young

Hider in the House: (Christopher Young) Had this film been made ten years later, it may very well have been nothing more than a late-night cable television affair. With a cast boasting two regularly supporting stars, Hider in the House is an urban horror/thriller with a frightfully predictable plot. A man abused as a child (played by the reliable freak, Gary Busey) has been released from twenty years of institutionalized care after killing his parents in a fire, and decides to secretly build an apartment in the attic of a random, huge Colonial-style home and hide there in solitude. A family moves into the house, not knowing of the secret occupant in the attic (which should remind everyone to check their insulation up there regularly, just in case you have Gary Busey hanging out up there), and slowly the man leaves hints of his existence and surprisingly saves the family from accidents. After exposing the father of the family as an adulterer, the stranger befriends and eventually terrorizes the mother of the family (Mimi Rogers). It's a psycho-in-the-attic tale without anything particularly new or refreshing about the angle on the story, and the film's popularity sank immediately upon release. Director Matthew Patrick had been a childhood classmate of composer Christopher Young in Massachusetts, and with Young already establishing himself by 1990 as the master of the horror genre of film music, Patrick called upon Young for a collaboration on Hider in the House. It was a project right up the alley of Young, who had not only scored big name horror scores with large, crashing ensembles, but had extended himself into the realm of quiet suspense as well. This score in particular would be very similar in plot scenario and musical requirements to Unlawful Entry, a like-minded film of slightly better success that was scored with minimal intrusion by James Horner. The approaches by Young and Horner towards these films are arguably appropriate, but in their long list of scores released on album, neither one is particularly interesting. Both, as a matter of fact, would be released by Intrada Records and eventually "deleted" by the label at an incredible 99 cents per copy in the late 1990's.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

Young has stated that the personality of the score for Hider in the House attempts to mirror the emotional state of the primary character played by Busey. The emotionally underdeveloped persona of that character is innocent and subdued, normally stalking and observing the situation. But, of course, that character is also prone to explosions of temper, and Young's score therefore offers two or three highly typical, shrieking orchestral explosions of terror to strike the near silence whenever the character strikes with anger. The rest of Hider in the House is very mellow and underwhelming during its duration. The two themes of the film, one for the concept of family innocence and the other serving as an echo of the primary character's troubled childhood, are transparent, though simple in their expression. The music box approach for the family is not presented with great focus, causing it to meander aimlessly in the background of several cues. The childhood theme is presented in the form of a boy's choir that performs a rhythmic four-note progression that follows the hiding psychopath's actions. The score and film both open and close with these seemingly religious, innocent choral passages. These performances remain consistently optimistic and pure, with the low rumbling of the orchestra surrounding and overwhelming the theme at the start (as if to introduce the ominous premise of the film). The mass of the underscore is as basic as it gets, with all of the instruments of the ensemble playing in their lower-most ranges to create a wall of sound that is clearly meant to unsettle the listener. On album, this continuous "sound effect" of sorts is interrupted only by the shattering blasts of quick horror, as well as the two choral passages. Even the choir can't save this score from the pits of despair, however, and on album the music is ultimately a lifeless, uninspiring effort. For a simple mood, Hider in the House may suffice, but musically speaking, it lacks enough of an identity to justify a solo listen. It did, however, mark one of the first collaborations between Young and Doug Fake of Intrada Records, leading to the generous release of many Young scores by Intrada in the many years to follow. *   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Christopher Young reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3 (in 23 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.99 (in 7,951 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.