Review of Hide and Seek (2005) by Monsieur R — 04 Dec 2010

Why does RT not list De Niro and Fanning as the lead actors in this one? Insane that they mention minor actors. All the usual horror stuff here. The now new, old home, in New England... the strange town with a suspect sherrif... the windy nights.. the broken glass...candles...stuck windows... were it not for the dominance of DeNiro and Dakota Fanning we would be seeing an old home with paranormal problems.

Older, now psychologist De Niro and strangely very young daughter Dakota Fanning play loving father and freaked out daughter in this fascinating psycho-mystery thriller. A "who done it", we are astounded as just who is the problem. We are astounded because we have been left absolutely no clue as to who is the crazy. You would think that somewhere we would know.

While the ending is tragically dumped on the least suspected person, the real tradgedy is that we were left totally unprepaired for the culprit. This is totally unworthy of any movie to make a villain of the least person we would ever suspect.

I am going to leave it to you to deal with, but I will say that it is not characteristic of the killer to be our villain.

Well done in every respect, this film is worth watching.

Complete credited cast:

Robert De Niro ... David Callaway.

Dakota Fanning ... Emily Callaway.

Famke Janssen ... Katherine.

Elisabeth Shue ... Elizabeth.

Amy Irving ... Alison Callaway.

Dylan Baker ... Sheriff Hafferty.

Melissa Leo ... Laura.

Robert John Burke ... Steven.

Molly Grant Kallins ... Amy.

David Chandler ... Mr. Haskins.

Jake Dylan Baumer ... Disturbed Boy.

"Hide and Seek revolves around a widower and his daughter. They move to upstate and Emily soon creates an imaginary friend named Charlie... but this act takes an unexpected and terrifying turn, where her father and doctor start to worry about Emily's gruesome habits." Written by ek025.