Great Film: Hide and Seek

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Fair

This horror/thriller/(maybe)supernatural movie is nothing really remarkable, or anything that you haven't seen before, but it's quite watchable. After the suicide of his wife, Robert de Niro's psychologist character withdraws to an isolated rural location as therapy for his traumatised daughter. Things start to get creepy when she develops an imaginary friend who has a decidedly vicious streak.

I've been complaining for some years now that de Niro really needs to pay a bit more attention to the sort of parts he accepts: he's been in far too many stupid comedies. Here we finally see him in a dramatic role, and whereas he pulls it off professionally, it's not really an inspired performance, and you have to wonder where his next classic role is going to come from.

That aside, 'Hide and Seek' is a suitably creepy and dark movie. Its major fault, at least as far as I was concerned, is that its crucial 'secret' was obvious by about half an hour from the end. I still held out hopes that I was wrong, but I think anyone who's seen enough films of this sort would work it out by a process of elimination, and besides, the movie blows its own cover completely a good 10 or 15 minutes from the end, which leaves you with a rather disappointing and predictable run home.

The DVD includes four alternate endings, three of which the directors eventually decided were too 'dark', and that the audience deserved some kind of positive 'reward' after having sat through so much traumatic stuff. I disagree. At least two of the three 'dark alternate endings would have improved the film by giving it a sting in the tail. Good god, go through a mental list of great horror movies, and you won't find many that shy away from endings that are 'too dark'.

Categories

Thriller, Mystery, Horror

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