The Grudge, The Ring, Children of the Corn, what do all of these horror films have in common? They all have creepy little kids acting evil. It is a formula that works for me, and Hollywood tests it again with the new film Hide and Seek.
In an effort to get over his wife’s unexpected suicide, psychologist David Calloway (Robert De Niro) and his daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) move out of New York city to rural upstate New York. Of course for the movie’s sake, they move into a creepy old house in the middle of some scary woods. From there, mayhem ensues as everyone starts acting crazy.
As I mentioned before, one thing that does scare me is crazy, evil little kids. Maybe it is the idea of them being inherently evil, rather than learning evil? I don’t know, but for whatever the reason they freak me out.
So, I had some high hopes for a film with this gimmick, and a cast of De Niro and Dakota Fanning. Unfortunately, I could not have been more disappointed.
The movie turns out to be one the worst, most cliched films I have seen in a long time. The surprise twist ending can be seen from a mile away, and was so obvious that it was insulting. The film actually made me angry, I was asking myself, “Do they think we are all stupid?”
It is a wannabe psychological thriller, which is a total disaster. Not only that, but it is painfully slow, with the few scares it does muster up few and far between.
With a lack of an original plot, the movie tries to rely on the acting to carry it, which does not happen, and while the acting is good, nothing can save this atrocity.
Hide and Seek is an embarassment and a film in which De Niro, Fanning, Shue and Janssen should all be questioning their involvement while looking for new agents at the same time.
