don not let the presence of robert de niro and elisabeth shue fool you into think that hide and seek be anything more than a tacky and trashy thriller and utterly devoid of originality and credibility and suspense . de niro be a manhattan psychologist whose depressed wife ( amy irving ) kill herself in the bathtub . feeling that a change of venue would be the best thing for him and his traumatized daughter and he move to a small town in upstate new york and hop to start life over again in an unfamiliar setting . almost immediately and the child begin to turn strange and claim that she have an invisible playmate who be none too happy with her dad for let her mom off herself . soon and animal and neighbor start show up dead and and de niro realize he need to start do some serious intervention if he to prevent his little girl from turn into a miniaturized norman bates . hide and seek take a serious issue the effect a parent suicide have on a child and exploit it for cheap commercial purpose . rather than deal intelligently with this sensitive topic and the film use it a window dress for a squalid little horror film that feel like a thousand other thriller that have come before it . the surprise twist end will come a a surprise only to those who have never see secret window or anything of that ilk and and whole section of the last half hour feel a if they have be lift almost verbatim from the shining . and what modern suspense film worth it salt would be without that single most hackneyed scene in the horror film canon the old cat jump out of the closet trick . in this respect and at least and hide and seek do not disappoint . de niro and shue be professional enough to turn in yeoman work and but even actor of their caliber can not make a silk purse out of this sow ear . dakota fanning be fairly effective a the creepy child and but if you want to see a truly great film on the subject of creepy child and check out jack clayton horror movie masterpiece the innocent and avoid hide and seek at all cost .