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Hide and Seek thoughts.....

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DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
just got in from seeing Hide and Seek. Interesting enough premise, some nice red herrings but the pacing of the movie... my god horrendous... it plots SO slowly along, building only in small increments.... ending? predictable. Twist? predictable... still Dakota, De Niro and Elisabeth Shue's cleavage do decent work.
 
I was pleasantly surprised.

I went to go see this movie with some friends, expecting your average torrent of sneek-up-on-you shockers (e.g. "The Grudge"). But along with the creepy moments came an actual appeal to emotion...after certain events take place that make you appreciate and respect the characters; you begin to actually feel for them.

I'd recommend it.




Happy now? :p


Anyways...

You've got to be kidding. In no way was that plot twist predictable. Nothing at all even HINTED to
the dad being Charley
 
MIMIC said:
You've got to be kidding. In no way was that plot twist predictable. Nothing at all even HINTED to
the dad being Charley

Wow, I hope you're being sarcastic because that's actually the first thing I thought it was just by seeing previews and such. Predictable that totally is!
 
MIMIC said:
You've got to be kidding. In no way was that plot twist predictable. Nothing at all even HINTED to
the dad being Charley

If this is true then
you can predict it from the freaking ads!!
 
I didn't really pay any attention to the previews, so I'm downloading the trailer right now (even though my viewing would basically be rendered irrelevant having already seen the movie).
 
From a review:

There is, of course, a twist ending, though it's telegraphed so often that it induces more giggles than shocks. Once it's introduced, well before the finale, the filmmakers insist on dragging the movie out to a squirm-worthy 102 minutes. And their idea of a twist upon the twist is shockingly obvious. Only the skillful editing by Jeffrey Ford and the moody cinematography by Dariusz Wolski lend some polish to the picture.

Someone....ANYONE...reveal what gave it away.
 
alejob said:
If this is true then
you can predict it from the freaking ads!!
Yeah, seriously. I had no clue how it was going to end from the trailer, but the ads show a completely different side of the film with DeNiro acting all crazy with a knife that makes it rather obvious. Pretty awful marketing.

Oh well, I never really planned to see it anyway.

EDIT:
Also, they show DeNiro calmly approaching the window from which someone was pushed (or something), and that was seen in the trailer I believe. The ads just really give it away.
 
MIMIC said:
From a review:



Someone....ANYONE...reveal what gave it away.

Ok given that the trailer shows De Niro with a knife, let's look at the layout of the movie.

There is no supernatural entity involved: This is pretty much a given as that's not De Niro's type of movie nor is there any indication in anything that happens that this is the case.

With that gotten out of the way let's look at the case.

Famke: Not in the movie nearly enough to be doing anything, hell she's on the phone from NY the entire time... could she be faking it? Yeah but probably not.

All the rest of the cast are IMO obvious red herrings, since the daughter's room is on the 2nd floor who ever is coming and going needs to have access to her room, we're given no indication that anyone is slipping in and out of the house.

The biggest two clues however are the 2:06 awakening and the recurring dream. Let me say this though.... De Niro does a TERRIBLE job of portraying a schizophrenic/mpd... he's showing none of the signs except for the sleeping problem. An Multiple Personality Disorder generally has a traumatic triggering point. So... what do we know.

1. Something happens at the New Years Eve party... something very traumatic(how do we know this? Because he has the recurring nightmare and each night wakes up at 2:06). Let's go back and look at the party again. The husband is at the party with his wife... she slips away from the party and heads up a dark stairway... that doesn't scream rendevous to you?
2. The wife and husband aren't getting along at all. (How do we know this? We're given no other clues to their relationship except the brief conversation where she speaks to him with obvious disdain.
3. Charlie is almost always around when Dad is working in the office IIRC.
4. For me the biggest clue is the boiling water... it denotes that more time has passed for the main character than he realizes... why? Blackout.

Given that we know someone in this movie has a problem... and the only person we've been show that has had a traumatic event is the father and we are reinforced that by the recurring dream.

As for the daughter developing schizophrenia? That's pretty much a given in these types of movies.. by the time this movie is over she's seen her father act like two people, kill various people AND attempt to kill her and someone she REALLY cares about(Famke). IMO it was pretty obvious that she was going to develop problems... and IIRC there are cases of folks being genetically predisposed towards schizophrenia which means if the father is... and the daughter carries his genes... ta da...

I'm sure there are other clues that perhaps I'll remember if I think more about this movie.

Remember that Identity came out last year... which shares some traits with this movie....

Now maybe this is because I've seen these types of movies for YEARS.... awhile that it was obvious to me.
 
Ass!! It was like Secret Window all over again, which pissed me off the scale. Fucking corny ending, and I agree that the newer promos
that focused on DeNiro
were spoilerific. If I see this concept reused in another film I'm going to get out of my seat and promptly burn down the theater.
 
MIMIC said:
You've got to be kidding. In no way was that plot twist predictable. Nothing at all even HINTED to
the dad being Charley

No, you've got to be kidding. I figured that much out from the previews!!!!
 
MIMIC said:
You've got to be kidding. In no way was that plot twist predictable. Nothing at all even HINTED to
the dad being Charley

Yep thats pretty much what I figured after reading Darien's post. Sounds ALOT like a certain Johnny Depp movie. Only this one has an annoying little girl in it.


EDIT**
Ned Flanders said:
Ass!! It was like Secret Window all over again, which pissed me off the scale. Fucking corny ending, and I agree that the newer promos
that focused on DeNiro
were spoilerific. If I see this concept reused in another film I'm going to get out of my seat and promptly burn down the theater.



Crap ya beat me to it. Just make sure you know where your fire exits are first.
 
Hmmmm...I was telling one of my friends that I saw "Hide and Seek" over the weekend, and she told me not to give away anymore because there was a "surprise twist."

Maybe that's why everyone CLAIMS to have 'seen it coming'....I didn't know there was a surprise twist until it actually happened.
 
I haven't seen the movie, but I knew there was a twist ending, before anyone told me. Why?

It's a freaky kid movie. Freaky kid sees dead people, freaky kid has premonitions, freaky kid has an imaginary friend, put it any way you want, Hollywood will not make a high-budget movie with De Niro where a freakin' child kills people (the ads made it seem so). So who are the suspects, from the trailer? Yeah, that's right. There's only one solution to this puzzle. I didn't go to see it, and I waited to have my doubts confirmed by the GA Forum elite. And obviously, I was right from the get-go. Too easy, I say!
 
MIMIC said:
Maybe that's why everyone CLAIMS to have 'seen it coming'....I didn't know there was a surprise twist until it actually happened.

I'm not one to always predict plot twists... but what's with trying to call bullshit on everyone else who does? It doesn't make you stupid just cause you didn't see it coming. Come on, some people have seen a lot more movies than you for one thing. Who cares if you didn't have any idea about what some others were able to predict.
 
Elizabeth Shue is still hot, but she's getting old. I heard somewhere that Ralph Macchio is like, 40 himself when he looks like a 20 year old.
 
Damn, I'm pissed that I looked at the spoilers now... I had no clue that the
Dad would be Charlie... In all the previews I saw, DeNiro acted normal, he showed no signs of being a crazy nutcase. I thought it was on some silly ghost shit.
Now I'm pissed that I know the whole plot... Argh....
 
JeffDowns said:
I know, I'm saying I'm pissed at myself that I couldn't resist looking at the spoilers... Just because I heard the movie sucked ass. :-/

No man, on your post. It's cool, I didn't plan on seeing it, but someone else might.
 
I don't know how you people didn't see that coming. I was betting people that
DeNiro was charles m. shultz
two weeks ago. You guys are really too niave.
 
Ecrofirt said:
I don't know how you people didn't see that coming. I was betting people that
DeNiro was charles m. shultz
two weeks ago. You guys are really too niave.


It's more that I just never really put any thought whatsoever into it.
I just immediately wrote it off as another ghost movie.
 
Willco said:
The most important question:

HOW DO ELIZABETH SHUE'S BOOBIES HOLD UP?


I can't believe it took THAT long for that question to be asked!!

What's wrong with you GAF?!!


I love her so ... ::swoon:::
 
JeffDowns said:
It's more that I just never really put any thought whatsoever into it.
I just immediately wrote it off as another ghost movie.

That's what I did. Me and my friends got together and just decided on a movie, not knowing much about it.

I didn't even know DeNiro was in it.
 
In a letter sent out today, word has come that in Australia at least (and quite possibly in several international territories) that 50% of cinemas will receive the original ending of the film (involving a drawing) while the other 50% will receive an alternate ending (involving
an institution
).

The change is not expected to impact the running time and it specifically states no public announcement about the alternative endings will be made, rather hoping moviegoers will discover it themselves.
See, at least when they released Clue with three different endings you could sit through a hilarious movie to get to them.
 
DarienA said:
just got in from seeing Hide and Seek. Interesting enough premise, some nice red herrings but the pacing of the movie... my god horrendous... it plots SO slowly along, building only in small increments.... ending? predictable. Twist? predictable... still Dakota, De Niro and Elisabeth Shue's cleavage do decent work.

Wow, I read that last sentence way too fast. I thought, for a moment, that you were implying that De Niro has nice cleavage...
 
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