R, 105 minutes, Southwinds 12.

It’s often hard to be enthusiastic about horror films of late, unless they’re Japanese or Japanese remakes. However, Hide and Seek is an exception—an intelligent horror that does not rely on special effects or flashy set pieces to get the audience’s hearts racing.

David Callaway (Robert DeNiro) not only has to deal with his wife’s death but also his daughter Emily’s (Dakota Fanning) imaginary friend, Charlie. Try as he might, Charlie will not go away. With strange things happening, it turns out Charlie is perhaps more real that David suspects, and his plans are more sinister.

The film works because it uses classic techniques to instill fear—such as not knowing what lies behind closed doors, and close-ups of the characters so that we are unable to see what is coming up behind them. Like the best horror movies, the filmmaking is quiet and observing rather than being stylized and fast-paced. What often makes a horror film scary is not knowing what is going to happen in certain situations, and in this respect the film delivers fully. It is the first time I have heard people scream in the cinema. And not just once, two or three times.

The performances add much to the film—I don’t know who is better, DeNiro or Fanning. Each played their part brilliantly. Fanning’s facial expressions leave you both mesmerized and shocked at the same time. Unpredictable and full of tension, perhaps the only flaw is that the last 10 minutes are needless. They slightly diminish the overall effect of the film, but as a whole it still stands as the year’s best horror movie.