Hide and Seek

Not content with ‘Godsend’, Robert De Niro stars in another hokey horror thriller about a creepy kid. Dakota Fanning digresses from her cute blonde stereotype to play sinister, ashen-faced brunette Emily, whose father David (De Niro) decides a remote house adjoining spooky woods is just the place to get over her mother’s death. But Emily’s mysterious new friend ‘Charlie’ starts daubing threatening messages on the walls, drowning the cat, and worse. Is Charlie Emily’s traumatised alter ego?
Don’t answer that. In fact, don’t even think about it because if you do, you’ll guess the ending of this film, rendering the preceding hour or so practically pointless. Fanning’s performance is strong, and there’s some dark comedy in Emily’s perpetually doom-ridden countenance, humorously ignored by cooing locals. And De Niro, of course, could do this in his sleep. But the traditions of the genre are upheld so loyally, and the conclusion signalled so clearly, that this could almost be mistaken for an unscary spoof.