Hider In The House gave Gary Busey arguably his best villain role. The success of 1987's Fatal Attraction gave way to a series of glossy thrillers that involved stalkers. The most notable examples include The Hand The Rocks The Cradle, Unlawful Entry with Kurt Russell, and Single White Female. Hider In The House was one of the earliest examples of this wave, which starred Gary Busey as a former psychiatric patient called Tom who breaks into an empty home, but when a family moves in, he hides in the walls and starts to spy on them.
Gary Busey is best remembered for a string of high-profile bad guy roles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He played the vicious henchmen Mr. Joshua in the original Lethal Weapon and mysterious government agent Peter Keyes in Predator 2. He also featured in a memorable supporting good guy role in Point Break as the partner of Keanu Reeve's FBI agent.
Gary Busey has always been a magnetic screen presence, and even if the movie he's appearing in isn't so great, at least he'll be entertaining. While he excels portraying over the top bad guys like Under Siege's Krill, Hider In The House gave him one of his most unique and complex villains. Busey's Tom Sykes killed his abusive family when he was a teenager and is a man struggling to make a real connection with the outside world.
When the Dreyer's move in he spies on their day to day family life and wishes he was part of it. The first half of Hider In The House features Tom formulating a plan to make himself part of the clan, and once he learns husband Phil (Michael McKean, Better Call Saul) is having an affair, he works to replace him as the man of the house. Hider In The House is a solid thriller that's elevated by a surprisingly strong cast, including Busey and Mimi Rogers. Busey takes what could have been a stock role and makes it sympathetic; Tom is undoubtedly a villain, but the actor at least makes his motives understandable.
The second half of Hider In The House sees Tom's plan slowly crumble, and the movie moves into more generic home invasion territory. The movie's director Matthew Patrick originally wanted a more complex ending, with Tom planning to kill the family in a fire when he's rejected, but ultimately releasing them and letting himself perish in the blaze instead. The studio opted for a traditional, Fatal Attraction-style finale where Tom turns evil and is shot dead.
Hider In The House barely got a theatrical release and has largely been forgotten, and while it's not the strongest example of it's kind, it's worth checking out for Gary Busey's committed performance alone. Fans of this particular subgenre should also check out more recent examples, like Blumhouse's Ma or Dennis Quaid's The Intruder.