PHOTO COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX "Hide and Seek" - Dakota Fanning and Robert DeNiro star in "Hide and Seek," another horror flick about a creepy little girl. But sitcoms teach us that teenage girls are the real nightmares. They're a handful!

Hide and Seek: 1 out of 10

It's time for an intervention, Robert De Niro.

You're on a slippery slope of mediocrity, each film being worse than the previous. If your next film is more atrocious than "Hide and Seek," you might want to consider an early retirement. You are ruining your legacy.

"Hide and Seek" could very well be the most heinous film of the new year. I say this with the full awareness that a Tara Reid/Christian Slater movie just came out.

Robert De Niro plays psychologist David Calloway, a recent widower and father of Emily (Dakota Fanning). David decides to move Emily to somewhere secluded so she can grieve freely for her mother, who has recently committed suicide.

While in said seclusion, Emily meets a new friend named Charlie. We are lead to believe that Charlie is either Emily's imaginary friend or a ghost of some kind. Charlie and Emily begin a devilish game of hide and seek, each turn being more violent and emotionally stirring than the last. The whole point of the game is to "upset daddy." Charlie is a wicked asshole, whatever he is.

This is not a scary movie. It really, really wants to be, but it really, really is not. Low-angle canted shots and loud crashes do not a scary movie make. When a movie wants so badly to be scary and fails, it's absolutely ridiculous.

There is nothing remotely clever about this movie. Why is it that so many filmmakers these days think that we want to see movies with twist endings? This ending in particular makes the twist at the end of "Secret Window" look like Shakespeare. Twist endings are so overplayed, that almost everyone in the audience can anticipate the twist. This is weak. They should start teaching an anti-twist agenda in film school.

The surprise ending in the movie is so monumentally lame, that it does not warrant explanation. The hesitation of revealing plot points is in no way an attempt to give the movie credibility. It is, rather, an attempt to do the opposite - it is simply not worth your time.

What I will say is that the ending of the movie is tragically anti-climactic. Plus, the plot never adds up. The pieces do not fit together. And it's an overall disappointment.

The only thing at all worthwhile in this flick is Dakota Fanning's acting. She is able to portray such a wide range of emotions, and it is truly amazing to watch. Hopefully she won't get the Macaulay Culkin treatment and end up strange looking and untalented. Fingers crossed.

"Hide and Seek" never looked like a good movie, but it also did not look as ridiculously dismal as it was.

Please don't see this movie. If it fails at the box office, perhaps the trend of the twist ending for a twist ending's sake will stop, and Robert De Niro will go back to making movies that mean something.