Run from "Hide": De Niro finds another creepy-kid dunker

Memo to self: Do not — repeat, do not — ask provocative questions of self prior to screening, along the lines of "This couldn't possibly be worse than 'Godsend,' could it?" You just might get an answer.

"Hide and Seek," directed by John Polson and written by Ari Schlossberg, is seemingly proof positive that Robert De Niro no longer reads screenplays before signing on the dotted line. The film is a muddled mess of a thriller, overlong and cheesy and excessively reliant on dark rooms, bad weather and a child actress (Dakota Fanning) who can open her eyes really, really wide. At times it recalls "The Sixth Sense," "The Shining" or any of a handful of horror films that feature creepy children — not because "Hide and Seek" is any good, but because it makes you want to watch those better films instead.

De Niro plays David Callaway, a psychotherapist and widower whose wife commits suicide in the first few minutes of the movie (thus giving Amy Irving the rare distinction of playing a character who's dead before the opening credits roll). David and his daughter, Emily (Fanning), subsequently move from their Manhattan apartment to a house in the country, similar to the one Michael Douglas moves to in "Fatal Attraction," perhaps because they want to get away from Emily's therapist (Famke Janssen), who's always saying helpful things like "Trauma causes pain."

In the country, they meet a creepy sheriff, some creepy neighbors and Elisabeth Shue, an attractive divorcée who keeps showing up at the house wearing increasingly low-cut tops. (In her final scene, it's not clear whether she's there for a visit or a mammogram.)

Meanwhile, poor little Emily, who looks like she's in the late stages of some horrible disease, is becoming increasingly freaked out by her imaginary friend, Charlie. He does nasty things, sometimes in the house's grim basement where — say it with me — the lights sometimes go off. People die, a pondful of red herrings swim by, and all is very unpleasant, right up to the truly absurd final twist.

It would be easy to laugh off, except that there's a kid at the center of it, surrounded by adults who apparently thought appearing in this miserable excuse for a movie was a better idea than, oh, going to school or playing soccer or something. Fanning, now 11, is an unusually talented child actor; she's got an uncanny ability to focus, and someday some director (maybe Steven Spielberg, who's directing her in this summer's "War of the Worlds") will harness her gifts to good effect. But in the meantime, she just appears in one awful movie after another, and it's depressing to see her doing this kind of creepy-kid crap.

Likewise, De Niro (who did the creepy-kid-crap thing just last spring, with "Godsend") appears to have given up; the brilliant star of "Taxi Driver,' "The Godfather Part II" and "The Deer Hunter" now seems content to make glorified B movies like this one or throwaway comedies like "Meet the Fockers" or "Analyze That." He's certainly entitled to kick back and collect a paycheck, but these films are adding a sad postscript to his career.

The last weekend of January is traditionally a dumping ground for turkeys at the multiplexes, so don't say you weren't warned. "There's nothing to be scared of in these woods," says somebody, welcoming David and Emily to their remote new home. Oh, yes, there is.

P.S. OK, so "Hide and Seek" was worse than "Godsend." But De Niro couldn't possibly make a movie worse than "Hide and Seek," could he? Could he?

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com