167 - Hider in the House

    A disturbed man builds a false wall in the attic of a new house.  He becomes obsessed with the family  that moves in, and manipulates events to bring himself into their lives.
    I grew up in a small town with an independent video store.  While I grew up fascinated with the box art for horror movies, I didn’t watch many until high school.  This was one of the movies that I never rented, but it was a real in-joke among my friends.  One of the guys had the last name Heider.  Now that I’ve actually seen this movie, it’s probably good that we never rented it.
    As I was watching it, I kept feeling like every step of the story was a cliche.  But I can’t remember where I’ve seen it before.  I’ve seen Bad Ronald, Crawlspace, and a variety of other movies that have a similar premise.  But I can’t point to any of them that use the same elements.
    The one thing that this movie has going for it is Gary Busey.  I don’t like the guy, I generally don’t care for his acting, but he is legitimately creepy in this movie.  I don’t know how intentional it is.
    The script has a variety of problems.  There’s some awkward writing when the couple needs to get into an argument.  There’s a sequence where Busey is supposed to overheard the hotel and room number where he plans on cheating on his wife… but for some reason, the husband is telling this kind of detail to one of his friends (possibly a co-worker?).  Because of how awkward that piece of information is, we actually don’t hear it said, but it’s clear that Busey gathers that information from their conversation.  When I try to imagine that scene unfolding in reality, it’s kind of impossible.
    After laying a trap that involves luring the wife to a lunch with her husband, leaving a note for her, somehow getting the hotel lobby to give her a key to a hotel room, the wife catches her husband in bed with another woman.  Both she and her husband never question the chain of events that brought her there.
    Busey kills off the family dog.  After the dog disappears, no one seems to be broken up about it.  There’s barely any mention of it, even after the buried dog is found in the backyard.  Hell, they never address what he does with the body of the woman he kills.
    Even the basic setup that Busey uses during the movie lacks a certain common sense.  He builds a false wall in the attic (which is a fantastic, huge attic).  He builds it at one end.  He installs a door to it, and a vent, for some reason.  But he builds it so that it blocks a substantial window.  Wouldn’t people notice that?  From the outside, there’s a window.  From the inside - there’s just a wall!
    There are a few minor upsides.  I love seeing Michael McKean play his usual slimy businessman character.  I love that this came out in 1987, and there are great touches of 80s fashion throughout.  There are a few great mullet haircuts.

    Watching this movie did give me an idea.  In these movies, we typically see that the voyeur becomes more and more unhinged as they become more obsessed with their focus.  I would like to see a movie that uses an unhinged voyeur that develops a comprehensive plan that turns them into an important part of the life of their target.  And that the longer they work at it, they become more and more normal.  By the end, they are fully engrained, and they eliminate all clues about their voyeuristic start.