Hide And Seek: All Four Alternate Endings Explained

American horror movie Hide And Seek has four alternate endings. The movie, which came out in 2005, was directed by John Polson and stars Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning as Dr. David Callaway, a psychologist, and his daughter Emily, respectively. The movie follows them as they move to upstate New York after David’s wife and Emily’s mother, Alison, dies by apparent suicide. As the grieving duo’s new life begins, Emily makes an imaginary friend named Charlie. Polson had a total of five routes he could have taken with the movie’s ending; all are similar, but some are scarier or more intense than the others.

After Emily tells David about her imaginary friend Charlie, he begins to worry about her; one day, he finds their cat dad in the bathtub, and Emily tells him that Charlie did it. David becomes increasingly disturbed by Emily’s strange behavior; during a playdate with a new friend, for example, she cuts up a doll’s face. It gets worse—when David invites Elizabeth (Elizabeth Shue), a local woman, over for dinner, Emily comes to him and tells him that Charlie killed her. Indeed, David finds Elizabeth’s body in a bathtub full of blood—just as his wife’s body was found. David, in a panic after seeing Elizabeth’s body, goes outside and stabs a neighbor who he assumes is the dangerous Charlie.

David has a sudden realization that he is Charlie—he has dissociative identity disorder, and would “become” Charlie whenever he went into his study. He remembers that he created Charlie as a way to express his rage and commit acts that his kinder self would never be capable of. Therefore, he was the one who killed his wife and Elizabeth. And soon after, when the police come to his house after a call from the neighbor, he is the one who murders the local sheriff as his mind is finally completely consumed by Charlie. The action doesn’t stop there, as the movie creeps into its third act.

Hide And Seek: The Theatrical Ending Explained

As the movie rolls into its final act, viewers discover that Emily knew about David’s split personality the whole time time, but never said anything because she was scared and confused. She ends up calling Katherine (Famke Janssen), a doctor and a family friend who visited the father and daughter earlier in the movie, for help. Katherine comes to Emily’s aid as she hides from “Charlie” and, after a climactic struggle, Katherine shoots and kills Charlie, saving his daughter. In the creepy final scene, viewers see Emily in a new life, living with Katherine and getting ready for school. The camera zooms in on a drawing Emily made—it’s a drawing of herself, with two heads, suggesting that she may have dissociative identity disorder as her father did.

Hide And Seek: First Two Alternate Endings Explained

In one of Hide and Seek‘s four alternate endings, after the same climax, the camera zooms in on Emily’s picture to show a happy girl with one head, suggesting that all is well. In a second ending, Emily is happily living with Katherine, but after Katherine leaves her room she gets out of bed and plays hide-and-seek—as she used to do with “Charlie”—with her own reflection.

Hide And Seek: Third And Fourth Alternate Endings Explained

In the third alternate ending, Emily is again shown in a her bedroom, this time before bed with Katherine telling her she loves her. As Katherine leaves the room, though, viewers see her lock the door from outside, and it’s revealed that the bedroom is actually a hospital room in a psychiatric ward. The final scene shot Emily getting out of bed and doing a hide-and-seek countdown. In the fourth ending, which was used internationally in theaters, viewers get this same psych ward ending, but without Emily counting down in the end.

Hide And Seek: Which Ending Was Best

While the final scene that director John Polson chose for the U.S. release is creepy, one of the alternate versions would have probably been more chilling. Emily ending up in a psych ward could be seen as a stretch by some, but the ending in which she is shown to be living happily with Katherine only to sneak out of bed to play hide-and-seek with herself, is believable and even more spine-tingling than getting a glimpse of the two-headed girl drawing. Like that chosen version, this ending reveals that Emily has severe long-term damage from the trauma inflicted on her by “Charlie”, but it does so in a way that would’ve ultimately been a better, more memorable ending for Hide And Seek.

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