Hide and Seek Film Review

Dear Me,

After Typhoon Ondoy ravaged the metro and nearby areas, my family and I were left unscathed, unlike other families.

Save for a few stuff (some boxes of cds, dvs and books) that were placed in a covered terrace, we were lucky not to experience horrifying encounters with the said typhoon.

Anyway, I am spending a couple of my free hours checking out boxes containing hundreds of cds and dvds.

Three days ago, I watched Hide and Seek, which I think was shown way back 2005.

Synopsis:

After the sudden death of his wife, David Callaway (Robert De Niro) takes his traumatized daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning), away to find peace and to start their life again in a new home. Emily fails to settle in well, with David becoming concerned as Emily identifies with Charlie. Someone who David has never met before, but who likes to play hide and seek.

Hide and Seek was a horror-cum-psychological thriller movie with my favorite Hollywood people, Dakota Fanning and Robert De Niro.

When the movie started, I felt like hitting the remote control for the stop button because of its dragging flow. I allowed some scenes to run and didn't realize that I finished viewing it.

I deemed the movie not scary at all. It would more like be getting so suspenseful at some scenes that I couldn't help but scream from utter surprise. Sometimes, I also felt confused as to where the storyline was going.

Dakota Fanning who portrayed Emily commanded such a terrific presence on-screen. Even without dialogue (where she stared blankly in the woods), her face evoked much credibility. For a girl so young, I couldn't believe how well she could be so dark and eerie.

I could not imagine how devastating it would be for a child to witness her own parent die. To process such tragic event in her young life would be much harder for her than any trained medical professional, even if it was her own father. I had read about imaginary characters being conjured up by little ones after horrible instances in their lives. They turned to the imaginative being as their only friend whom they could talk to and confide their naked thoughts and emotions.

Robert De Niro as David the psychologist and Emily's father, well, I sort of did not approve. For one thing, wasn't he too old to be Fanning's pop in the movie? Second point was that I couldn't feel any vibe that he was her father. There was no unseen bond or connection of their relationship as father and daughter. David seemed distant.

The movie had a lot of sudden turns like who Charlie was (not just a figment of Emily's imagination) and who developed a "new" personality.

Over-all, it wasn't a great horror movie that would deter me from shoving popcorn in my mouth. It was a lousy movie to start with but Dakota Fanning gave life to it.