Don't let the presence of Robert De Niro and Elisabeth Shue fool you into thinking that "Hide and Seek" is anything more than a tacky, trashy thriller, utterly devoid of originality, credibility and suspense.<br /><br />De Niro is a Manhattan psychologist whose depressed wife (Amy Irving) kills herself in the bathtub. Feeling that a change of venue would be the best thing for him and his traumatized daughter, he moves to a small town in upstate New York, hoping to start life over again in an unfamiliar setting. Almost immediately, the child begins to turn strange, claiming that she has an "invisible" playmate who is none too happy with her dad for letting her mom off herself. Soon, animals and neighbors start showing up dead, and De Niro realizes he needs to start doing some serious intervention if he's to prevent his little girl from turning into a miniaturized Norman Bates.<br /><br />"Hide and Seek" takes a serious issue - the effect a parent's suicide has on a child - and exploits it for cheap commercial purposes. Rather than dealing intelligently with this sensitive topic, the film uses it as window dressing for a squalid little horror film that feels like a thousand other thrillers that have come before it. The "surprise" twist ending will come as a surprise only to those who have never seen "Secret Window" or anything of that ilk, and whole sections of the last half hour feel as if they have been lifted almost verbatim from "The Shining." And what modern suspense film worth its salt would be without that single most hackneyed scene in the horror film canon - the old cat-jumping-out-of-the-closet trick!? In this respect, at least, "Hide and Seek" does not disappoint.<br /><br />De Niro and Shue are professional enough to turn in yeomen work, but even actors of their caliber can't make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. Dakota Fanning is fairly effective as the creepy child, but if you want to see a truly great film on the subject of creepy children, check out Jack Clayton's horror movie masterpiece "The Innocents" and avoid "Hide and Seek" at all costs.