Intrada are becoming well known among soundtrack buffs as a place to go for all sorts of interesting releases; expanded and deluxe versions and reissues of all sorts. Hider in the House (1989) stars Gary Busey as a recently released mental patient who decides to move into a family’s attic by building a fake wall and hiding inside it. It all eventually goes wrong (no really?) and shenanigans occur.
Christopher Young took up composition duties. He has also been responsible for the music that accompanied such seminal horror titles as Species, Invaders from Mars and the slightly less-seminal The Core, a glorious cheesefest where the Earth’s core is no longer spinning and everyone will be microwaved to death by solar rays. It’s really silly.
This reissue is made up of a mere six tracks, with a 40 minute running time in total. Track 1 takes up the bulk of the running time at a hefty 18 minutes and 31 seconds in length. ‘The Hider’ blends many different elements, opening with a sweet, soft choir, moving through themes of melancholy, horror, action. But at no point does it develop any real standout themes. Instead, it relies on instrumental shorthand, letting the music convey what the audience should be thinking and feeling about events on screen. The soundtrack to 2018’s Black Panther was guilty of this as well on more than one occasion.
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There is little to differentiate between the remaining tracks. For instance, Track 02 (‘A Place Like Home’) and 03 (‘Momentary Bliss’) use almost identical motifs. So much so that without the break in the music it would be difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The same goes for Track 04 (‘Invisible’). Only Track 05 (‘Reversing Colors’) breaks the mould, being of a more traditional horror bent, with sawing strings, thumping drums and blaring horns. Track 06 (‘At Peace’) is a return to the choir and the same wistful, forgettable strings that have accompanied the journey through this story.
This is, frankly, not a good enough soundtrack to merit a release on its own and definitely not a highlight of Christopher Young’s catalogue. It is simply inoffensive, leaving little impression on the listener’s memory except a vague surprise on realising it has come to an end.
For hardcore fans only.
