This horror movie [Hide and Seek] started off a little slow, but I'm cool with that as long as it follows through with something interesting in the second half. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Psycologist [psychiatrist?] David Callaway [De Niro] wakes up one night to find his wife dead in the bath, apparently a suicide. As the camera pans back, we see his daughter, Emily [Dakota Fanning] looking on in horror. Next we see her all weirded out in a children's hospital, where David tells hospital worker [nurse, doctor?] Katherine [Famke Janssen] that he is taking Emily out to the country for a change of scenery. They meet the Sherriff [Dylan Baker], the weird neighbours and Elizabeth [Shue][the post-dead-wife love interest]. And we start to hear about Emily's strange, unseen, new friend, Charlie...

That's the setup which takes up the first half of the movie and it's all rather boring, although there is an atmosphere of creepiness that almost makes it worth watching, mostly due to Emily being such a little freaking weirdo. But that's part of the problem as she doesn't ever come across as very likeable post mother-mortem, neither does her father or anybody with the exception of Elizabeth, who you know is not long for this world. And I'm not giving away anything much by saying that as Charlie makes it clear very early on that he doesn't like her. And you know if Charlie doesn't like you, you're gonna die, and die ugly. Katherine is somewhat sympathetic, but she's mostly in NYC while all the fun is happening way out in the crazee countryside.

I figured out where the movie was headed early in the second half. And I'm not being a smartass when I say that, I think most people would figure it out as easily since this movie ain't exactly subtle [or original for that matter]. So we find out what's happening, it ain't a big surprise, a few people die gruesome deaths and the movie proceeds to a very predictable wrapup, the end. Except for a general air of creepiness, this movie is quite forgettable, it's all been done before. And done better. I was glad they didn't have the "boogeyman" suddenly come back after being killed at the end, that type of thing has been done to death and I am so sick of it. And it was better than Boogeyman, which was a horrible, horrible bad bad movie. Bad. Considering the stellar cast headlining this movie, it should have been much better. There were also a few obvious continuity errors that I found rather distracting. In one scene, Emily is shown frantically locking a door with a set of keys. In a quick cut seconds later, the door is shown jammed shut with a wooden spoon. In another scene, a flashlight is shut off and knocked away into the water, where it mysteriously turns itself back on!

So yeah, I would say skip this movie. Or at least go into it knowing that it's not going to knock your socks off.