Run, hide from awful ‘Hide and Seek’

This movie should’ve stayed hidden.

Honestly, did we really need to see another slow-paced, alleged “thriller” about a house where people die and the prime suspect is a Creepy Kid? And let’s not even talk about the laughable “twist” ending that you can see coming from a mile away.

“Hide and Seek” is slow, poorly written and tries to invokes the spirit of Stanley Kubrick, “The Grudge” and “The Sixth Sense,” but doesn’t deliver the goods. Worst of all, it takes a stellar cast and wastes their talent and our time.

For the umpteenth time this past decade, Robert De Niro phones-in his performance, this time as David Callaway, a successful psychologist whose wife commits suicide. David and his 10-year-old daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) discover the bloody body in the bathtub.

David decides to move to a house in upstate New York to tend to his distraught daughter, who has begun to dress and look like Wednesday Addams and who speaks about an imaginary friend named Charlie. David suspects and fears that his daughter may have a split personality and be responsible for his wife’s death.

Soon, dolls become mutilated, a family pet meets an unfortunate end and then there’s the most frightening part of the movie: De Niro’s character hooking up with Elisabeth Shue. If watching a fossil like De Niro try to get his freak on with a young hottie like Shue doesn’t have you reaching for a barf bag, I don’t know what will.

I’ve already mentioned the laughable twist ending, so the less said about it — and this film — the better.

The only redeeming aspect of “Hide and Seek” is the performance by Dakota Fanning. For a girl so young, she displays a maturity beyond her years, and her work in this picture upstages even De Niro’s.

However, it’s not enough for me to recommend you see this horrible movie.

GRADE: F