We’ve all woken up in the dead of night, drenched in sweat and convinced that Gary Busey is in the room. You’re lying if you say you haven’t. Even if it you don’t remember, your lizard brain has envisioned Busey watching you from the shadows. Finally, someone was brave enough to tap into that primal fear and bring it to the screen. Removing Busey from the (I assume) crumbling lighthouse he usually resides in and placing him within the walls of a suburban home. This is horror at its most primeval. Mimi Rogers and Michael McKean… What… Checks notes… yep, wow. Mimi Rogers and Michael McKean move into a new home unaware that a deranged man (I don’t have to tell you who it is) has taken up residence in the attic. Horrific audio of Gary Busey (playing his character’s father) being abusive to his wife and child plays over opening credits and photos of a suburban neighborhood. It ends in murder or fire or something… it’s nothing good. Busey is now the grown child of the abusive parents we heard and he’s got himself a hair trigger and a diminishing bit of control. He wanders around a nice neighborhood and sees a house undergoing construction, bingo-bongo Gary Busey has himself a new home in the attic. Cooped up in a secret room, he spies and obsesses over the family of four as they go about their lives. The curious family dog gets murdered, the little daughter catches Busey wandering the halls at night (years of therapy are in her future), an exterminator is beaten to death for doing his job, McKean ends up being a real prick, a pervy neighbor (scene-stealing Bruce Glover) hangs around and brings a natural level of “icky” ya just can’t fake and Busey becomes a bizarre guardian angel of sorts for the Dreyer family with an emphasis on the lovely Mimi Rogers (don’t blame him there). When papa is out of the picture, thanks to the revelation of his philandering ways, Busey starts envisioning a serine life for himself and his new “family”. Eventually his psychosis takes over which leads to an inability to just play voyeur and this leads to the inevitable tragic consequences. It’s a solid thriller that definitely feels like the TV movie it is but a strong cast keeps it above drowning. It runs a little longer than it should but that Busey sure can play crazy on the edge of boiling over into homicidal.
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