"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." goes the tagline. Which is the line Robert De Niro leered to audience-freaking effect in Cape Fear. See what they did there?

The director of Swimfan returns to young-female-with-problems territory with this equally slick but ultimately dopey tale of a disturbed child and her sinister imaginary friend.

De Niro plays David Callaway, a psychologist left to bring up his little daughter Emily (Fanning) alone following the bathroom suicide of his wife (Irving, who doesn't even make it to the opening credits).

By moving to a small upstate town, David hopes to start afresh. But Emily is in mental retreat and refuses to be neighbourly, nice or polite. To anyone.

Her hostility towards David's new friend, glamorous divorcee Elizabeth (Shue) is understandable – she’s not Mommy.

Of more concern is the creepy presence of 'Charlie', who lives only in Emily's imagination but has a visibly unhealthy effect on her.

Things come to a head when David finds nasty messages on the bathroom wall. Of course, ‘Charlie did it’. But Charlie is just getting started...

The first hour is eerie and effective with De Niro and Fanning making a believably dysfunctional team of estranged father and daughter.

But the peripheral characters – singleton Shue, fellow shrink Janssen and eerie Sheriff Dylan Baker - amongst others – are laughably clichéd, being either red herrings or destined for an early grave.

And the final act makes no sense whatsoever. None.

Hide And Seek is definitely a movie of two halves - but it has enough jolts to keep thrill-seekers hiding behind their seats.

Elliott Noble