Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
David Callaway tries to piece together his life in the wake of his wife's suicide and has been left to raise his nine-year-old daughter, Emily on his own. David is at first amused to discover that Emily has created an imaginary friend named 'Charlie', but it isn't long before 'Charlie' develops a sinister and violent side, and as David struggles with his daughter's growing emotional problems, he comes to the frightening realisation that 'Charlie' isn't just a figment of Emily's imagination.
Hide and Seek is a mid-2000s psychological horror that leans heavily on familiar tropes: the grieving parent, the creepy child, the imaginary friend with a dark secret. The twist ending, while intended to be a gut-punch, was widely telegraphed and felt derivative of better films in the genre. De Niro and Dakota Fanning deliver competent performances — Fanning in particular is unsettling at times — but the material doesn't give them much to work with. Cinematography is serviceable but unremarkable, relying on standard horror lighting and atmosphere without any distinctive visual identity. The film's concept had potential but ultimately executes it in a formulaic, by-the-numbers way, leaving the twist as the only real selling point, and even that was seen coming. A fairly mediocre entry in the psychological horror genre that doesn't distinguish itself from its contemporaries.