There’s a very freaky kid. Really terrifying things start to happen whenever the child is around. Somehow Robert De Niro—who may or may not be a mad man—is connected to all of this.

You probably haven’t seen a movie like this since, well since Robert De Niro helped bring us last year’s divinely dreadful Godsend (in fact, if you had any sense, you didn’t see that one either). Apparently, heavenly lightning and/or mediocre studio executives strike twice and some moviegoers will now have to sit through the drudgery that is Hide and Seek.

The movie’s plot begins on, as a title card grandiosely announces, “THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR.” Clearly the much simpler “New Year’s Day” would not have been adequate; the latter is too pragmatic, too close to how normal people actually speak—whereas this picture makes every attempt to hide its pedestrian quality with big stars, high production values and, of course, cryptic, inflated dialogue.

Presumably tired after a long day in rehab with Kathy Griffin’s career, Emily (Dakota Fanning) is ready for her mother, Allison Callaway (Amy Irving), to put her to bed. She subsequently goes to her room sliding into bed next to her husband, David (Robert De Niro).

Later that night, David wakes up and discovers his wife is missing. He quickly discovers her in the bathroom with her wrists slit. His screams fill the air with horror, waking young Emily who sees her dead mother.

Emily is left severely traumatized after her mother’s unexpected suicide. She begins seeing a shrink, Katherine (Famke Janssen), to help her cope. David worries that Emily may need even more assistance. What clues him into this? Maybe it’s those beady, blue eyes that threaten to roll out of Emily’s eye sockets at any moment.

Following typical horror film logic, David and Emily leave their New York City apartment for a big creepy house in a desolate upstate New York town. Relocating away from the city is supposed to help Emily purge her memories of the tragedy. Lo and behold, shortly after arriving at their new place, things start to get worse.

David discovers that Emily has a new imaginary friend named Charlie. Emily says some nasty things to David which she claims Charlie told her to say. Nasty words soon turn into nasty actions, which in turn lead to nasty deaths (of the human and kitty variety)…it’s like a Dick and Jane adventure gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Unable to make sense of what is happening—he’s stupider than the big-breasted blondes of slasher flicks—David worries that Emily may be somehow directly involved. Whenever he approaches her though, she claims that she is innocent. Instead, she squarely blames her imaginary friend.

As this inane plot slowly unfolds, there are shrieking noises, quick cuts and skulking figures meant to make viewers jump in their seats. Too bad no amount of shrieking, cutting or skulking (and believe me there is some fine skulking going on here…it’s like they took lessons from Hugh Grant’s Divine Brown run-in) could ultimately save this picture.

Director John Polson manages to create a sense of foreboding, though in the end a payoff never quite comes. While he and the other filmmakers have fine control over the technical elements of horror filmmaking, their story is not gripping. I was somewhat amused by all of the fuss over who Charlie really was, but I am also somewhat amused by Keanu Reeve’s oeuvre—that is not enough to recommend a movie to general audiences.

Decent acting is the one saving grace of this otherwise unimpressive feature. Dakota Fanning demonstrates her acting chops and shows once again why she is Hollywood’s top child actor. She impressively holds her own against an actor of De Niro’s caliber. It has clearly been good training playing against all those hunky-leading man types (Denzel Washington, Sean Penn, and soon Tom Cruise). De Niro, playing against the Travis Bickle-type that first catapulted him to fame, is very convincing as David, a soft-spoken psychologist.

As the picture reaches its end, it appears that the filmmakers have to explain who is actually behind all of those terrible deaths. I won’t spoil the inevitable “twist ending” that has been used to sell the movie, but let’s just say that causal relationships go out the window, where they will certainly find the company of reason and Dakota Fanning’s dignity. Ultimately, “THE PART OF THE MOVIE THAT COMES AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE” proves to be just as vacuous and phony as the opening.