Australian director, John Polson�s second American movie, following Swimfan, returns him to the thriller genre but this time with the added ingredient of horror.
There is always an effectively creepy and disturbing element in such movies when they involve children as in such recent examples as The Others or Godsend. Like the latter, Hide and Seek also stars Robert De Niro and the child in peril is played by the talented Dakota Fanning.
De Niro is David Callaway and Fanning is his nine-year old daughter, Emily. Both are trying to recover from the recent death of their wife/mother, but Emily has begun to deal with the trauma in her own special way � she has invented an imaginary friend named Charlie. Nothing unusual about that � until �Charlie� starts to become all too real and Emily begins to do some bizarre and frightening things�