IMDb user comments for
Hide and Seek (2005)

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46 out of 65 people found the following comment useful :-
A classic underachiever., 26 January 2005
Author: John DeSando (jdesando@columbus.rr.com) from Columbus, Ohio

Maybe Robert De Niro's doctor in Godsend (2004) went to the same medical school of horrors as his Dr. David Callaway in Hide and Seek, this year's De Niro toss away film, from which he deposits his considerable paycheck along with cash from Meet the Fockers. Why he doesn't concentrate his fortune and connections (as Clint Eastwood does) to craft an artful small film that would allow his acting gifts is the only mystery for me from his prolific but arguably spotty career.

Young Emily Callaway (Dakota Fanning) has lost her mother (Amy Irving) to suicide. Psychologist dad moves her to an older, rambling house in the woods in upstate New York to start a new life. Not new are the abundant clichés of the horror film: the suspicious neighbors, whom director John Polson makes as creepy as possible; the questionable sheriff; the doors leading to scares; the mutilated dolls; Emily's imaginary friend, Charlie, who appears to be causing numberless offenses in the house; and knives placed as objects of intrinsic interest; and a vulnerable girl friend, Elizabeth (Elisabeth Shue). I stopped counting, for the film is one extended cliché after another.

The interest for serious filmgoers might be the depiction of the psychological stat after a loss to suicide. Whatever the term might be such as "post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome," the film does a credible job showing how difficult it is for Emily to lead a normal life after the loss of her mother (and for her father as well). While there are echoes of Stephen King (The Shining's "Here's Johnny" comes to mind) and Hitchcock (think shower scene), there is no comparison in quality with those classics. The audience at the preview enjoyed some of the stock shock moments behind the many closed doors. Hide and Seek will titillate horror fans but disappoint discerning film buffs, who look for some believable edge and innovation.

Milton in Paradise Lost expressed the descent from happiness to despair: "Farewell happy fields, Where joy forever dwells: hail, horrors!" Hide and Seek is not a classic horror film; it is a classic underachiever.

37 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
"Seek" ends with a whimper and not a bang, but at least it finally ends; sadly, this turns out to be the highlight of the experience..., 26 January 2005

Author: the unemployed critic

Hide and Seek

After the suicide of his wife (Amy Irving), David Callaway (Robert De Niro) has packed up his distraught daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning), and moved to upstate New York for a fresh start. Attempting to mingle with the locals (including Elisabeth Shue, Melissa Leo, and Robert John Burke), David finds that Emily's strange, withdrawn behavior is only getting worse, with the child mentioning an imaginary friend named "Charlie" as her new companion. David is driven to the brink of sanity when vicious and mysterious occurrences start happening around the house, and Emily blames Charlie after each of the incidents.

Conceptually, "Hide and Seek" is a dependable premise for a taut little thriller. Using a single, central location effectively, while keeping the audience on its toes with some robust screen writing and acting, "Seek" is the type of thriller that a sparkling director could fully realize with expert precision. I'm thinking someone along the lines of Brian De Palma, or even "Mr. Twist," M. Night Shyamalan. But "Seek" doesn't have anybody of that caliber guiding it; it has John Polson, the filmmaker behind the dreadful teen thriller, "Swimfan."

Polson, a former actor turned director, isn't a polished enough craftsman to take "Seek" to new and interesting places. He's a company man, drowsily pushing this wet noodle suspense film through the paces, perhaps thrilling the uninitiated, but putting the rest of the audience to sleep. Polson is confusing tedium for tension as he slowly ramps up the mystery behind Charlie, along with tepidly baiting the audience with Emily's odd behavior. "Seek" runs the gamut of thriller clichés, but predictability isn't the defining problem of the production. The film truly struggles with the lifeless way Polson distributes his thrills, only rarely letting the film out to actually thrill. "Seek" feels like a very large missed opportunity.

While it used to be the other way around, it's something of an anomaly to see Robert De Niro playing drama again. As the mousy father suspecting foul play of his angelic daughter, De Niro is expectedly consistent in the role, but feels restrained by Polson's direction. De Niro makes a good team with Dakota "Macaulay Culkin 2" Fanning, but the 11 year-old actress is just a hair too polished and rehearsed for the role. Emily's threat never translates off the page as it was intended.

To drum up publicity, 20th Century Fox is going to hilarious William Castle-esquire lengths to "protect" the ending of the film. Without spoiling anything, the climax of "Seek" isn't all that massive a revelation (a similar thriller, released a year ago, featured the exact same ending), and Polson misses his chance to create something potentially eerie and unsettling by endlessly drawing out the conclusion of the film to a point where the "grand" finale has been completely diluted. "Seek" ends with a whimper and not a bang, but at least it finally ends; sadly, this turns out to be the highlight of the experience. ---- 3/10

7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Extremely well acted and directed!!!, 30 January 2005

Author: sammast12 from United States

I was absolutely on the edge of my seat the entire time. The acting was terrific and the mood and pace was unlike any thriller I have seen before. I really didn't know how it was going to play out and it almost didn't matter who 'Charlie' even was. I was just enjoying the setup. De Niro and Fanning are a solid match and did a wonderfully job conveying the desperate but paralyzed father and the tormented frightened child.

Even though we've seen various parts of this before, the way it was done was fresh and as scary as hell!! I thought "Hide and Seek" was great fun and a pleasant surprise and I hope it brings De Niro back to doing what we love him to do - Drama!

Check it out!

8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
a routine plot twist done well, 31 January 2005

Author: sulloat from United States

When I first saw the preview for Hide and Seek, i thought that it was just another creepy kid movie. but after going to see it with a clear mind, i was pleasantly surprised. The movie was well-crafted and suspenseful with incredible performances from the cast. The ending was mildly disappointing, but unlike other movies with this ending, it actually had an actually thrilling climax right after the "predictable" plot twist. there were various plot twists before the end that threw people off track so that they could enjoy the suspense instead of dreading an obvious twist. some people bash this movie just because they are fixated on one part of it. truth is, the rest of the movie is excellent. even if you are judgmental, go into the theater with a clear mind and you will really enjoy this movie.

9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
A Great Horror Movie., 29 January 2005
Author: horror_freak from USA

Hide and Seek is one of the best horror films I've seen in awhile. It is about a psychologist, David Callaway (Robert DeNiro) whose wife commits suicide, and he decides to move to upstate New York with his daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning). A family friend, Katherine (Famke Janssen) disagrees with David's decision to move, and thinks that Emily should stay where she is. Then after David and Emily move into their new home, David meets Elizabeth (Elisabeth Shue), who becomes a friend to David and Emily. Then strange things begin to happen - Emily discovers a new imaginary friend, Charlie. And then people start to die. Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning are both brilliant. Dakota is quite talented for her age, and DeNiro gives another great performance. Famke Janssen (Don't Say A Word and House on Haunted Hill) also does great, and Elisabeth Shue (The Karate Kid) is also very good. The whole film was really suspenseful, and it tricks you a lot. I liked this movie because it was more psychological rather than chop and slash gore that most horror films use to scare people. Hide and Seek has a good, solid story beneath it, which is why it is such a good horror film, and the acting is top notch. Highly recommended. 10/10.

13 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Come out and see this movie!, 28 January 2005

Author: lsjca from Toronto, Canada

Normally I like to see thrillers when they come out on video, mostly because there's always one jerk in the movie theatre who laughs at the tension and just ruins the mood. And that jerk is always sitting behind me. But this movie was so gripping that I only noticed the jerk when he shifted and kicked my seat and even with that interruption every 5 minutes, I still found the movie scary.

We were told in the preview that the final reel was not given to theatres until just before the first showing so that the ending would remain a secret. Still, if you want the ending to be a surprise, go see this movie in the first week otherwise some jerk (no doubt related to my movie jerk) will talk about it loudly on the subway or at work.

The acting was very good and the actors were all well cast.

I gave it a 9.

2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Although not original, a good one, 30 January 2005

Author: bigreddog213 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This kind of move has been done before (Fight Club, Secret Window), but I thought this was really a pretty good movie.

Actors were wonderful. De Niro (David), as he did to me in Cape Fear and This Boy's Life, made me scared to look at him when he turned "crazy". Dakota Fanning (Emily) I'm looking forward to more great rolls from her. And it was nice to see the pretty face of Elisabeth Shue (Elizabeth).

You didn't understand the use of the neighbors in the movie until you started to get what was really happening towards the end of the movie. I was expecting it to be something else completely. It threw me off when the husband came into the scenes, just what his character was supposed to do.

This movie isn't a must see in theaters, but a good rental.

3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
World Class Acting Makes This Movie A Great Thriller., 2 February 2005

Author: BigHardcoreRed from Calimesa, California

Hide And Seek is about a family of three who have to put their mother/wife's suicide behind them and get on with their lives. The father, David (Robert DeNiro), and daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning), have a rough time getting through it. Emily more so, if only because her father is more concerned for her well being. Emily soon makes a new friend in "Charlie", with who she can confide and play games with. No one really knows what or who Charlie is and that is pretty much the mystery, as you may have guessed from the trailers. I won't give it away here so fear not reading on.

This is your rather typical, paint by the numbers thriller. Typical in the fact that it really brings nothing new to the table. That makes it sound boring but it is really not. In fact, even though I thought I had it all figured out from the beginning, it was still pretty exciting. I did enjoy the story quite a bit but it did have many of the same stereotypes or cliché's you see in most horror/thriller movies. The creepy cat, the lonely house in the middle of nowhere, questionable neighbors and eerie coincidences all contribute to that.

I think what brings this average story to an above average and pretty darn good movie is the great acting by those involved. Of course, I'm talking about world class actor Robert DeNiro and the astonishingly good Dakota Fanning. DeNiro was good enough here to make me forget Godsend and Dakota has you hooked from the beginning. That's quite an accomplishment for an 11 year old. For someone that young to convince me that she was really that scared is amazing, and scarily good. In her short, but what will be unquestionably long, career, she is showing some great range for her age. My recommendation is see it. 8/10

6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Mediocre at best, 29 January 2005

Author: kuito69 from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I went to the opening night of this movie... and I must say, I am very disappointed. The trailers really made the movie look amazing, but when I saw the movie, I thought, "When is something actually going to happen?" I found it disappointing that it took a long time for something to happen, and when it finally did, it was a very weak way to finish off a movie. As someone stated in another comment, the only thing worth seeing in that movie is Dakota Fanning. For an 11 year old, she is very creepy and sure knows how to keep an audience at the edge of their seats. I suggest to anyone who wants to see that movie to consider seeing another one, or wait until it comes out on VHS/DVD so you can rent it for cheap.

9 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Atmospheric, but not the achievement it could have been., 26 January 2005

Author: Fiendish_Dramaturgy from http://fiendishdramaturgy.elswet.com or leave a Private Message.

David Callaway's (De Niro's) wife has just committed suicide. His daughter (Fanning) is not handling it very well, so he moves them to northern New York in attempts to gain a clean break from past memories.

Emily (Fanning) begins an association with an "Imaginary friend" whom she calls Charlie. But is Charlie imaginary? You'd have to ask Emily, who is the only one who can see Charlie, as things begin to start happening around the house. As they progress from bad to worse, and then grow completely out of hand, a final climactic deadly game of Hide and Seek begins.

The script here is adventurous and daring, unfortunately, it appears to suffer weak direction. J. Polson does not have the experience to draw upon in order to break this work out of the mire of normalcy, and (while not glaringly obvious) it shows. He is adept at tension building, but the subplots and outlying elements seemed to throw him for a loop. He shies from taking the necessary chances, or doing anything which will call attention to this film, be it good, or bad. While you can enjoy this work, it could have been so much more.

The ending was shaky. It didn't seem to know if it wanted to be a horror or a drama. It felt rather anti-climactic and the twist was not all that astonishing, as this was more a re-telling of the Shining with a weird mix of The Sixth Sense thrown in for good measure.

De Niro was adequate although I thoroughly enjoyed Dakota Fanning's work. I thought she was quite the professional in that her portrayal felt natural when it should have, and stiff when she was no longer...herself. This work has some extremely good effects and suspenseful moments, but they aren't enough to float this attempt

It rates a 4.3/10 from...

the Fiend :.

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