Hide And Seek 2005

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: The second half gets downright silly as the country home turns into a slaughterhouse. What could have been a Sixth Sense-style intelligent thriller heads straight for the drive-in, though it's still handled with considerable skill. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The result is more campy than scary, and in the horror game, that means nobody wins. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: The actor who gave us Johnny Boy, Travis Bickle, Jake La Motta and the young Vito Corleone still has his chops. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The last weekend of January is traditionally a dumping ground for turkeys at the multiplexes, so don't say you weren't warned. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: I think it's just so well made, so well photographed. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A nifty little thriller with some effective psychological and supernatural flourishes. Read more

AV Club: Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: The movie is not without merit. Ten-year-old Fanning ably handles her part, which alternately requires her to adopt a thousand-yard stare and look like a scared little girl. Read more

Janice Page, Boston Globe: You won't find anything startling or memorable. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: Unless you're a connoisseur of movies that are so bad they're good, Hide and Seek is one game you're not going to want to play. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie goes down the tubes in the last third. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: For the first hour or so it builds inexorably to an excruciating level of dread. It does this so well, we're willing to forgive the small lapses of logic it takes to get us there. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: Hide and Seek really isn't a suspense thriller at all. It's a mystery movie. It's always a mystery when highly talented people commit the time and effort to a film that is so obviously mediocre. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: As a fright movie, Hide and Seek is only a middling thriller. But as a tip sheet for real estate shoppers in wooded rural areas, it's top-notch. Read more

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly: It was really only a matter of time before 10-year-old Dakota Fanning brought her unsettling precocity to the horror genre. And it's a bit of a waste. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: There are few scares and even less logic. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Add this movie to Robert De Niro's climb up Mount Hackdom. Read more

Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly: It's a fascinating meeting of equals -- if the child star challenged the master to a game of stare-down, the legend might very well blink first. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: The movie wants in the worst way to be among the new wave of big-screen chillers, served with a twist. As the old joke goes, they've succeeded -- in the worst way. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The camera leers at 10-year-old Fanning to the brink of criminality. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Another of those real-estate horror movies that sticks it to urbanites who overspend on picturesque Victorian houses in towns where the locals resent them. For city folk in rambling country homes, something wicked this way comes. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Robert De Niro rises to a formidable challenge in this sufficiently unsettling thriller: he holds his own against the scene-swiping 10-year-old actress Dakota Fanning. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: [An] idiotic, yawn-a-minute thriller. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Give us a reason to care. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Movies about the psychological abuse of a child can be powerful when the subject matter is handled in a serious, sensitive manner. But when it is employed as a plot device to enable a surprise revelation, it becomes offensive. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There was a point in the movie when suddenly everything clicked, and the Law of Economy of Characters began to apply. That is the law that says no actor is in a movie unless his character is necessary. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Through its first two-thirds, at least, Hide and Seek does a good enough job of piquing our curiosity that the movie's ultimate dumbness is more than a minor insult. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The mystery is maintained only through characters' behaving against their own interest, doing things they wouldn't do, failing to mention things they certainly would mention. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: First-time screenwriter Ari Schlossberg builds an atmosphere of free-floating apprehension through most of its length before pulling an 11th-hour switcheroo that undermines the stars' commendable efforts. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: The movie is bad in the sense of being morally reprehensible. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: The movie's only rewards are a few unintentional laughs, as when the sheriff (Dylan Baker) calls Emily a 'cute kid' after a long stretch in which she's been acting and looking battier than Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: Follows no semblance of internal logic. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: It doesn't get stupid for a long time! That's the finest compliment these kind of movies can aspire to. This means you'll have a decent time. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: High class briefly gives way to high camp, which then itself dissipates to an anticlimactic thud. Read more