2.37:1 DVD capture: Hide and Seek The DVD

Hide and Seek arrives on DVD from Fox in competing widescreen and pan-and-scan editions; we received the former for review. Five incarnations of the film are contained on the platter, as viewers have a choice of watching the theatrical cut or branching to a version with one of four alternate endings. Presented in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 Dolby Digital, these epilogue substitutions are all variations on the same theme after the first, which merely subtracts the schlocky twist from the current capper. The remaining three--skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to remain a spoiler virgin--find Katherine (Famke Janssen) saying goodnight to Emily (Dakota Fanning), but in two cases Emily's bedroom is actually in an institution, and a couple of times Emily gets back out of bed to play hide and seek with her new imaginary friend, whose identity I won't give away out of deference to the reveal's effectiveness. By seeing it last, the fourth ending loses the blindsiding impact of its hospital punchline (as you probably guessed, these endings may also be watched individually, with optional commentary from director John Polson, editor Jeffrey Ford, and screenwriter Ari Schlossberg), though it definitely hits the hardest emotionally. Interesting that its hopeless overtones make it feel like the European correlative to the cheap American payoff, since this is the denouement that accompanied international release prints. Fourteen other deleted scenes (totalling 19 minutes with "play all" activated) decorate the disc, likewise with Polson, Ford, and Schlossberg commentary, although the A/V quality takes a nosedive. With the glaring exception of a key encounter between David (Robert De Niro) and the sheriff that ranks as Dylan Baker's finest hour post-Happiness, there's not much here worth sending a telegram about. (Am I alone in thinking that Baker and De Niro should've swapped roles?) Of note, however, is the possible DVD first of bit players who landed on the cutting room floor receiving onscreen credit for their appearances in these elisions, something for which they probably have former actor Polson to thank. Arguably more enlightening are three "PreVis" sequences that mix storyboards with finished footage to show how the film's execution improved upon its conception; while I suppose this feature smacks of insecurity ("See? Things really could've been worse!"), it ultimately reflects well on Polson--flying solo at the mike this time--that he wasn't always content to colour inside the lines. Finishing off the video-based extras is a 10-minute featurette ("Do You Want to Play: The Making of Hide and Seek") that's traditional EPK fluff save the unusual amount of discussion given over to a scene that's acknowledged as no longer being in the film. (Dakota predictably inspires a litany of James Lipton-isms from her co-stars.) Polson, Ford, and Schlossberg re-team for an initially insufferable feature-length group yakker that redeems itself with a demystification of De Niro's process so thorough and engaging, it may in fact go down as the definitive nuts-and-bolts account of working with "Bob." Other audio options supplementing the occasionally edgy, overly dark 2.37:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer include an atmospheric 5.1 soundmix configured for DD and DTS playback, with voices sounding a little clearer and scares seeming a little more intense in DTS. Preceding the main menu, an anti-piracy PSA and a Fox promo reel round out the disc.-Bill Chambers

Super-shrink David Calloway (Robert De Niro) has an unrestful house. His wife (Amy Irving) is suicidal and his daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) is creepy, and when his wife offs herself, he bundles up his pallid, corpse-like little moppet and spirits her out to upstate New York to begin her recovery in almost total isolation during winter at a summer resort community. Resembling the Sally doll from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Emily begins to behave like Regan from The Exorcist, talking to an invisible friend who says nasty things and causes her to behave poorly in front of guests (she even tells a hapless, Stephen King-esque local constable (Dylan Baker) that he's about to die). While the title sequence tune by composer John Ottman is an obvious homage to the lilting lullaby that opens Rosemary's Baby, the scenes establishing David and Emily's escape into the country are straight ports from Bryan Forbes' The Stepford Wives. A dinner sequence with David's hastily-sketched love interest Elizabeth (Elisabeth Shue) is taken from Beetlejuice (and Emily's wardrobe is an ape on Wednesday Addams'), the opening car ride to the remote destination sprinkled with liberal flashes of a doomed New Year's Eve party is a flat rip-off of The Shining, and the shower curtain/butcher knife stuff as well as most of the ridiculous final reel is Psycho all over again. The truly obvious comparisons, though, are to Secret Window, Gore Verbinski's The Ring, and De Niro's own Godsend--put the three together with Adventures in Babysitting and you've got Hide and Seek.

So it's extremely derivative, sure, but prior to its last half-hour, it's also sort of amusing as a genre "Where's Waldo?". It's minimally diverting to guess exactly when the family pet will get the axe, when the insane little kid's twisted drawings will catch the attention of the grown-ups, when the inevitable twist that steers the film away from actually being supernatural will reveal itself to an audience already about ten steps ahead of it--and so on and so forth. It continues 2005's early obsession with home invasion and falling under siege in broken sanctuaries, and it uses mirrors, paths into the woods, and dark hollows with what at first appears to be an admirable level of Yeatsian "Stolen Child" smarts. Until its finale, in fact, Hide and Seek is a completely harmless mainstream picture that seems to know what's going to moderately discomfit a mainstream audience--and it goes about its plodding business with high production values, an attractive cast (including Famke Janssen), and a cadaverous youngster. It even features an old Elmer and Daffy cartoon that works fantastically well to create a mood of childhood lost and the violence embedded in rituals of maturation.

But then there's that ending. Always familiar, Hide and Seek finally becomes tiresome and, more, disturbingly nihilistic as this little girl, in whom we've become at least a little invested, is subjected to sights and experiences that no child should be expected to endure. The closing image is one of the most snarky, unpleasant, and cruel you can imagine--all in the service of making sport of a little one's pain and sending everyone away with a laugh.-Walter Chaw

© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
101 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.37:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1,
English DTS 5.1,
French Dolby Surround,
Spanish Dolby Surround
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English, Spanish
DVD-9
Region One
Fox

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HIDE AND SEEK
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD
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Published: June 20, 2005