Hider in the House is a 1989

1989 in film

-Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...

 made-for-TV horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 directed by Matthew Patrick and starring Gary Busey

Gary Busey

William Gary Busey , best known as Gary Busey, is an American film and stage actor and artist. He has appeared in a large variety of films, as well as making regular appearances on Gunsmoke, Walker, Texas Ranger, Law & Order, and Entourage...

 as Tom Sykes, a psychopathic ex-mental patient. The film's tagline was: You can't lock him out. He's already in.

Plot

A recently released psychiatric patient named Tom Sykes creates a home for himself in the attic of the Dreyer family's newly built house. The first and most unforgivable sin against his unwilling benefactors is the murder of their beloved dog Rudolph after a valiant attempt to protect his family from an obvious lunatic. Tom becomes dangerously obsessed with Julie Dreyer, the mother in the house, going so far as to watch her skinny dip in the pool. Consequently he interferes secretly in the relationship between Julie and Phil. He befriends the Sykes' son Neal and teaches him his fighting techniques. After two arguments - both secretly planted by Sykes - Phil leaves the house and moves into a hotel. Seeing this as an opportunity, Sykes pretends to be a visitor who lives on Willmington St. a couple blocks over. His attempt to gain sympathy works, although the creepy neighbor and Philly fan-boy Gene is the only one who distrusts Sykes. Sykes murders two people who had discovered his ambush and finally Julie rejects his advances. This causes him to go off the deep end once again, and he tries to kill Julie. Phil is severely injured defending her while Julie gets a gun and shoots him in the chest. But he's not dead! Tom gets up and tries to kill both Julie and himself, but cops (summoned by the good samaritan, yet still weird, Gene) shoot Tom dead from the doorway.

Release

Due to Vestron's financial difficulties, the film was never given a theatrical release in the United States. It was only shown at film festivals and was given theatrical releases overseas. In 1991, the film was finally released on videocassette by Vestron Video

Vestron Video

Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut that was active from 1982 to 1992. It is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market....

. The film has been released on DVD in the United Kingdom, but as of February 24, 2010, Lions Gate Home Entertainment has yet to announce any plans for a region 1 DVD release.