Next Year: Tag: The Musical!
As I'm sure you know by now, I tend to reveal the ending to (most) of the movies I review. This won't be any exception cause I need to discuss or maybe if I feel up to it dissect the ending. And for the first time ever in a review, I'll present to you, dear reader, the four alternate endings as well.
During the twenty-minute pre-credit sequence we find out it's New Year's Day and Robert De Niro's character David, his wife Alison, and daughter Emily, played by North Dakota Fanning, are at a park playing. Later that night, Alison says goodnight to the daughter and does what any typical mother does after saying goodnight to their daughters and husbands: kill themselves in the bathtub. David finds her and Emily as well.
After the credits, we meet Katherine, played by Famke Jansson, who was in some other movie that I can't place right now. She might've been Lola in "Run Lola Run". I dunno. The name sounds familar. Anyway, David tells Katherine that he and Emily are gonna move to the country (This all takes place in New York BTW LOL WTFOMGBBQ Greater Than 3) to forget their past or something.
Well...Emily becomes a little spooky thang. She just stands there, all pale, staring. Then she says she met a new friend, named Charlie. David thinks Charlie is her imaginary friend. Or some biker dude who plans on taking out for her first tattoo later on. Whatever.
Then the weird ass shit begins to happen. David wakes up and finds weird cryptic writings on the bathroom wall that read "YOU KILLED HER!" and "WHY DID YOU AGREE TO BE IN 'GODSEND'?" and "ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?" David, who thinks it was really Emily who did this but is lashing out cause she misses Mommy, asks her why she did it, but Emily insists it was "Not Me" and "Ida Know". And her new friend Charlie.
Realizing that Emily should be with actual people, David asks Elizabeth, played by Elizabeth Shue (Elizabeth IS Elizabeth!) to come over, along with her neice Amy. While Amy is in Emily's room, Emily freaks the ever living shit out of her by stabbing Amy's doll with a big ass knife she just happened to have under her bed. Amy, needless to say, runs out of the house like a bat out of hell. And I'll do anything for love, but I won't do that.
More weird things happen, like all the pictures of David and Emily, David's head is ripped off. And, well... The family cat, who I'll name Miffy, falls victim to Charlie. Yep, you guessed it. In the bathtub. And another message "WHY DON'T YOU LICK THIS PUSSY?" Ok, it didn't say that, but that would've been cool.
So Bob De Niro does what he does best: hide the body in the forest and yell at Emily. She still says it was Charlie. Not knowing what else to do, David talks to Katherine for a bit and she comes up to see Emily. Emily states that she can't talk about Charlie cause Charlie will go psycho.
Katherine says Emily needs to be locked up, David says "Forged aboout id!" and throws Katherine out on her ass. Later, Elizabeth swings by and goes and talks to Emily. Emily states that Charlie is hiding in the closet, so when she goes to look, she gets attacked by the camera man and falls to her death out the window.
David wakes up from his nap, making us think this was all a dream. But no, it wasn't, cause the town's sheriff comes by. Oh. Just WAIT until I tell you who plays the Sheriff. You'll laugh or something.
The perverted child molester from "Happiness". He's now a Sheriff in a small town. Makes sense in a way. Anyway, Sheriff Pervert stops by saying Elizabeth is missing and wonders if David and Emily seen her. They both lie saying no and when the perv leaves, David finds the busted window and gets really pissed off at Emily for killing again. THEN we get the surprise ending.
Who is Charlie?! Is it...
Dakota Fanning's character?
The creepy neighbor's who watch cartoon's 24/7 and literally stand around and yell for hours on end?
Maybe Katherine?
Could it just be a ghost?
Give up? Charlie is...
(SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!!)
DAVID!!! Wha?!?! You mean Robert De Niro is the killer?! Yes! You see, David has a split personality which came out on New Year's Eve when he saw his wife making out with some 20-year-old dude. So what we find out is she didn't kill herself, but rather David smothered her with a pillow, THEN cut her wrists to make it look like a suicide, and when he became David again, he thought it was suicide.
And this explains why Emily didn't wanna reveal who it was, cause who's gonna believe that? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Well, anyway, any last shred of David's sanity goes bye-bye and he fully becomes Charlie and decides to just murder anyone who comes by. This includes:
The Sheriff
The neighbor dude who figured it out but figured it all out off camera, so we, the audience, didn't know until David figured it out.
And attempts to murder Emily cause this is a sick movie. But thankfully she called Scatman Corthers with her Shining...no wait. She called Katherine on the phone and she came right away. Then there's a 30 minute chase scene in the woods, which end up in a cave and finally, Katherine shoots David.
One of the five endings that the writers came up is tacked on the theatrical release, which is pretty much just Emily living with Katherine and Emily is drawing something. When they leave for school, we pan down to the drawing and find a second head floating near Emily. Could this be a ghost? The real Charlie? What does it mean? Who knows, it's never explained.
I wasn't happy with the whole "Robert De Niro is the killer" thing, so I figured the Alternate Ending's would have other people be the killers. But, sadly, no. As always, the alternate endings are as stupid and pointless as any other alternate ending to any given movie.
Alternate Ending #1: Pretty much the same ending that was use, except we don't see a head floating near Emily. So I guess this means things are ok?
Alternate Ending #2: It's night time and Emily is about to go to bed. Katherine tells her goodnight and leaves. Emily counts to 10 and goes to the closet and finds...a mirror.
Alternate Ending #3: Same as above, but it takes place in a hospital. And it ends with Katherine saying she's taking Emily home in the morning.
And the last unneeded Alternate Ending #4: Same as 2 and 3, except Katherine says something along the lines of "DEAR GOD SHE'S INSANE!!! SHE SHOULD BE KILLED!!! LET ME STAB HER IN THE HEAD!!!! GOD SAVE US ALL!!!" and screaming for twenty minutes. Ok, not really. The screaming was from me, cause these were the dumbest alternate endings ever. They were better off not filming them at all. Sheesh.
So this movie is just ok. I'd recommend just renting it and going "Hm. Ok" and never see it again. Or just read my review and never watch it. If you want to live through me.
2 stars.
Hide and Seek on IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382077/