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Review of Hider in the House (Christopher Young)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you don't mind the atmosphere of an extremely
understated, mellow, and underwhelming score with shrieking explosions
of terror interspersed.
Avoid it... if you consider most generic and mundane suspense scores of muted presence to be lifeless and uninspiring, this one more boring than offensive.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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 already extended
himself into the realm of quiet suspense as well. The film 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. Young opts for a
more authentic, orchestral presence whereas Horner went the abrasively
synthetic route. The approaches by Young and Horner towards these films
are arguably appropriate, but compared to the composers' long
filmographies and fantastic releases on album, neither one is
particularly interesting. Both scores, as a matter of fact, were
released by Intrada Records and eventually "deleted" by the label at an
incredible 99 cents per copy in the late 1990's.
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 dominant near silence whenever the character goes into a rage. The rest of Hider in the House is very mellow and underwhelming in its vague atmosphere. 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 boys' 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 innocent, quasi-religious choral passages. These performances remain consistently optimistic and pure, with the low rumbling of the orchestra surrounding and overwhelming the theme at the start to introduce the villain and premise of the film. The mass of the underscore is as basic as it gets, with all of the instruments of the small orchestral ensemble playing in their lower-most ranges to create a wall of sound that is clearly meant to unsettle the listener. The suite of "The Hider" is a painfully slow and unengaging summary of the villain's material, while the other cues offer more tonal representations for the family. Blasts of horror shatter the soundscape in "Reversing Colors" and the choir returns for resolution in "At Peace." Even the marginally pretty choral passages cannot 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 of the composer's scores by Intrada in the years to follow. The label re-issued the score on an identical album in 2018 for far more than the 99-cent price appropriate for this music. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
All Albums:
Total Time: 40:31
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both Intrada albums include information about the score and film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Hider in the House are Copyright © 1992, 2018, Intrada Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/15/97 and last updated 9/1/20. |
