Playing Hide and Seek (2005)

  This post was supposed to be my first entry here in blogger. I don’t know why I did not finish it then. So here it is.

    I have a bunch of movies in my list in lieu of the summer vacation and some of which I haven't have the time to watch back then when there were classes.  So I browsed through it and it seems that I don't really want to watch any of it. It was a moment of trying to watch a film, not liking its opening, finding another one, boring, finding another one and another one because nothing seems to entertain you. So I decided to scare myself and decided to watch a thriller movie which I came upon because it was mentioned in our psychiatric nursing class and  I love psych! 

   Anyway, I personally don't like horror/thriller movies because I get scared easily and I have a very imaginative mind so basically it would take me a long time to forget scary images in my head which makes it very difficult to sleep at night or go to the bathroom alone. The very thought  of watching something thrilling would make me not watch a movie because  I would always associate with something horrific having ghost, monsters and other scary things/people. But then I did realize that they are really not always like that.  So now, I am able to watch thriller movies already.

  First Impression: I haven't really seen the trailer before I watched it, I just had a glimpse of it when my brothers were watching it a long time ago. I really thought that it was a scary ghost movie, I find Dakota really scary at the movie because of how she looks and look and the title itself give me the creeps thinking that what if you are playing Hide and Seek with a ghost or a kid like Dakota in the movie. And I don't like dolls (one doll was named Alex) like what Dakota have in the movie and I don't really like music boxes. (Not unless it would play Maroon 5, John Mayer, or Michael Bubble, kidding!)

Here's my own summary of the movie, including the comments and realizations I have and some which is not really related but I would just like to share. Btw, this contains mega detailed spoilers! Haha! (this turned out to be so long, remind me not to do this again! Haha)

Hide and Seek (Psychiatric Thriller)

   So it started with a park scene with of the Callaway family, (David-De Niro (father), Emily-Dakota (daughter), Alison-Irving (wife)) which seems to be a very typical happy family. Next was in their house, Alison went  to Emily's bedroom and she said to Emily that she loves her more than anything else in the world (that was the part that made me think, oh no, something's going to happen). Then she went on to her bedroom and she and her husband had a conversation, though not a good one, and then David seem to notice that there seems to be a problem so he asked Alison if she would like to talk (David is a psychologist), and then Alison replied that "some things are beyond therapy, David" oh no again! Then there was this flash back of what looks like a party and then he woke up. It was 2:06 am, her wife was not beside him so he looked for her and found her in the bathroom tub filled with bloody water.  Then as the camera view moves about, you can see that  Emily was there looking at her dead mother, aside from the fact that it was really creepy seeing Emily there, that is the scene that made me think, oooh, so this is where it all started, but then as I go through the movie, it really wasn't.

    Next a scene in NY Children's hospital, where Emily was staring blankly by the window. It made me think that she was in a state of Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). David and a friend Katherine (Janssen), which I believe is a psychologist as well talked about Alison and how David was not able to see the suicide coming. He seems to be blaming himself for what had happen.  David was planning to move upstate to start anew and to expose Emily to a new environment.

    Then the intro came, were the title has shown. (it seems late for me though but it is somehow the right time, what?) I really like the creepy (sorry for using this word so many times, I do not have that much vocabulary in my head) fading letters.

   Emily and David was already in their new house. And it was really funny at start, because David was trying to cheer Emily up. He's trying to make face to make her laugh and played hide and seek, only to make himself somewhat silly because not a smile or a smirk would be seen with her. (Flat affect!) David then began unpacking his things and started to write about his daughter. Basically, their life in their new house was really creepy (Sorry again!), starting of with the changes you could see with Emily plus the creepy neighbors, creepy house, creepy everything!

    This one is not creepy, they met Elizabeth (Shue) and her niece in the lakeside. David invited them in their house thinking that it would enable Emily to have a new playmate and would recover easily from the traumatic experience she just had.  One night before going to sleep, David noticed that Alex was missing (the doll I was talking about), Emily said that she does not like her anymore and that she already have a new friend named Charlie. David then began asking questions about Charlie and she seems hesitant to share. David realized that Emily is having an imaginary friend.

     David continued to have flash backs or dreams/nightmares of a party. It's really freaky(yes! I have a new word here) when you wake up in the middle of the night and that last thing you remember is someone touching your face. Anyway, he heard drops of water so he went to the bathroom, and was shocked to see a writing  in the wall "You let her Die", he looked away and there was Emily. He asked her why she did it, but she said she didn't and Charlie made it. (And yeah just like David, I thought that it was really Emily who did it, maybe not consciously though and I began to think that maybe she has this other  bad personality or alter-ego -Charlie.)

      I'm tired, this is so long already. Haha. So I'm going to make this short.

     David is Charlie! I knew that! NOT! (whenever I watch films of this kind or TV series like CSI, I'm one of those  people who would guess who is the bad guy and ending up disappointed of not guessing it right! Haha. It really is seldom that I would guess it correctly. so depressing. haha) Also, David is actually the one who killed his wife, including, the poor cat, the sheriff (he died right? Haha) and Elizabeth. Emily ended living with Katharine. The ending made us see that Emily has this split personality after seeing a drawing she made of her having two heads.

      That's it about the movie. Sorry for that long wordy paragraphs.

    I'm really into psychiatric movie/thrillers nowadays (The Roommate, Shutter Island, Black Swan, Chloe, Girl Interrupted, 7 pounds, Identity and a lot more) I guess a big factor would be our Psychiatric Nursing class. I really got to know a lot about mental illness and how they affect people. It gave me a wider view or perspective on different people and their personalities and I really learned that there are really a lot of factors that contribute to the development of oneself, so we should never really judge other people that easily, rather, understand them with an open mind.

Be my reader! :)
Comments are highly appreciated!