Hide And Seek - Saved By Stellar Performances (JAR OF FATE #3)
Like many horror fans, I obsessively collect horror movies on DVD and Blu-Ray. They sit in piles around my tiny apartment. Some are collector’s editions, some come from Scream Factory, lots of them are gifts. Some come from the $5 bin at Walmart, and a lot come from library sales where they’re only $1. Or that time HMV went out of business and I bought their entire horror collection for like $100. And sure, I may have four copies of Carrie, but I regret nothing.
Unfortunately, obsessively picking up horror movies means there’s a lot I haven’t watched. Whether it be that I’ve never seen the movie before, or I haven’t seen this particular version, or I have never cracked open the DVD because the movie is streaming and I’m lazy.
How do I solve this guilt I have as I sit streaming Netflix while piles of DVD’s surround me, judging quietly? I made a TO BE WATCHED jar, or as my friend Zo named it; JAR OF FATE.. I went through my collection and wrote down all the movies I wanted to watch on little scraps of paper and whenever I want to watch something, I pull randomly from the jar.
Third random pick is Hide and Seek, a 2005 movie directed by John Polson. It stars Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning.
There’s a lot going on in this movie so let’s break it down:
Dr. David Callaway finds his wife dead in the tub after she supposedly committed suicide. He moves his 9-year-old daughter, Emily, upstate to a strange little town. Soon, Emily develops an attachment to an imaginary friend she calls Charlie. Strange things start to happen that Emily blames on Charlie – like their cat dead in the bathtub. David befriends a beautiful neighbor named Elizabeth which causes Charlie to get angry. Elizabeth is killed. David now believes Charlie is a real person, and suspects a male neighbor who has lost his own child and is showing Emily attention. Things escalate and then BOOM TWIST – we realize Charlie is David. David is Charlie. He has dissociative identity disorder and Charlie is his other identity. He killed his wife, he killed Elizabeth, and he fully transforms into Charlie causing Emily and family friend, Dr. Katherine Carson, to fight for their life in a cave.
Here's what I loved:
Dakota Fanning is incredible in this. She’s got those big expressive eyes and does an incredible job of looking off into the camera haunted. For awhile you think perhaps Emily is the killer and Dakota’s performance solidifies that as the scenes are revealed.
I love an unreliable narrator, but what’s missing from this movie is the back and forth that you question your own opinion. There’s not a lot to make you even guess something is wrong with David. You think perhaps there is an imaginary friend, or it’s Emily herself, or the neighbor. There’s not much to give you doubts over David which is kind of cheating. And this leads to the reveal falling a little short. David walks into his study to find he never unpacked the boxes from the move. He picks up a pair of headphones and an empty journal and all of a sudden, he realizes he’s the killer. It’s a bit of a stretch.
I do like how everyone is shown throughout this movie. Because we’re seeing everything through David’s POV. Every new person they meet we see them as slightly off and suspicious. From the cop being unfriendly and strange, to the real estate agent dropping off keys at 2am. Are they suspicious? Or are they in fact suspicious of this new stranger coming to town, but we’re seeing it through a mentally ill person’s mind.
The ending has a second twist that leads us to understand Emily is also developing the same disorder. The theatrical ending shows Emily drawing a photo of herself with two heads, this was the version I watched. There’s a few other endings but most revolve around this reveal. I like this sort of quick drop of a much scarier possibility.
Ultimately, this is your run of the mill horror thriller with big stars in it. We get them all the time. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but it’s also not miserable to watch. The scares are non-existent as it focuses more on the character relationships than the jump scares and creepy imagery. Solid performances from Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning save this mediocre flick making it more enjoyable.
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