Cold Creek Manor

Rating:
Summary: Just plain bad
Review: There's an adage in real estate, if I'm not mistaken, known as "buyer beware." This refers to the fact that the buyer of the home must be aware that it comes as is, and there could be hidden problems with the house, or maybe the price is low for a reason, or inflated well beyond what the house is actually worth. Anyway, the characters in "Cold Creek Manor" probably should have thought about this. Making a documentary about the house you live in is no reason to buy it. Of course, the idea of "buyer beware" should also be extended to this movie. Let's face it...there's not really anything worthwhile in this steaming pile of monkey excrement. None of the actors are particularly good, though I have enjoyed past performances from Steven Dorff. Basically, what you're left with is a long, boring, unoriginal, and worst of all NOT SCARY haunted house/evil family type of flick that isn't worth the flimsy piece of aluminum it now exists on, let alone the film stock used to create, then project this horrendous film. There's really no salvation for this. Just avoid it.

Rating:
Summary: Get out of my house!
Review: Dennis Quaid was trying to warn us not to buy this!

Rating:
Summary: A dreadful film!
Review: Cold Creek Manor would probably have to be one of the worst so-called creepy, suspense thrillers in recent memory. With a totally B-grade look and feel to it, and with a generic, unimaginative storyline, the Manor undoubtedly went up the creek, in this overacted, dreary exercise in movie making. The big question is why this film was even made in the first place. The reasons are probably that Sharon Stone wanted to return to work, Stephen Dorff needed a job, and Dennis Quaid almost certainly wanted the money. Cold Creek Manor has been advertised as some kind of horror-thriller, but in reality, it comes across as a hokey, genre-muddled affair that has no interest in scaring us and is about as spooky as a trip to the library.

The thrills when they do exist are cheap: The most frightening is a collection of colorful snakes scattered around the mansion in the hope of scaring the Cooper family out of their new dream home. After fleeing Manhattan after their son Jesse (Ryan Wilson) is almost run over, Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and Leah Tilson (Sharon Stone) decide to head for the peaceful countryside where they purchase Cold Creek Manor, a run-down, rambling mansion. The problems in their dysfunctional marriage are placed on the backburner, as they begin to remodel the house.

It appears as though the previous owners left in haste years earlier: Clothes still hang in closets, books and papers and maps still fill every room and framed on the walls are eerie pictures of creepy men doing evil deeds. Cooper also stumbles upon some unsettling photographs that suggest family sexual abuse. There's obviously something evil lurking in the rotting house, and the surrounding fields - their young daughter (Kristen Stewart) even finds a sign in the woods that reads "evil."

While Cooper, a film-maker by profession is making a documentary about the house, Dale, the previous owner (Stephen Dorff), shows up after a three-years in gaol and convinces the Tilsons to hire him on as a handyman. There are lots of sweaty, shirtless scenes, where Dale, showing off his clipped chest and abs-of-steel, wonders through the house, calmly threatening Cooper and lasciviously eyeing Leah while he mows the lawn. Dale obviously has secrets, and the whereabouts of his wife and daughter remain in question. It's up to Dale's dying father (Christopher Plummer) who is rotting away in a nursing home, and local bargirl Juliette Lewis as Dale's tarty girlfriend, to help the Coopers piece together the mystery.

Cold Creek Manor is full of contrived histrionics, and plot twists that most viewers will see coming: There's a dead animal found in the backyard pool, an anonymous car chase at night, a well with a rotting corpse, and a dark, stormy chase through the corridors of the massive house. Juliette Lewis provides some brief moments of over-the-top fun with her character, but not even she can't overcome the stultifying effects of this dreadful exercise in mediocre film horror. Mike Leonard December 04.


Rating:
Summary: A big, lavish thriller... about a creepy neighbor guy?
Review: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, due to nice production values, fine acting, and a skillful directing job, this movie is worth seeing. You can decide yourself whether that means a purchase or a rental. But after seeing "Cold Creek Manor", I think you'll probably agree with me that the whole affair is basically, in the end, much ado about nothing. What we ultimately have here is an expensive, lavishly produced film about an annoying neighbor. That's it. Yes, the neighbor gets somewhat more dangerous as the film progresses, and there's a bit of a mystery about his past- and admittedly more serious- misdeeds, but ultimately they made a whole movie about the kind of disorderly conduct / nuisance neighbor case that most middle class neighborhoods have to put up with from time to time. I guess the producers felt it was high time that all those creepy, ex-con, handyman types out there finally got their own film.

Rating:
Summary: ATROCIOUS
Review: What the heck, I might as well pile on. Only the severely mentally retarded could find a single flipping thing worth seeing in this piece of bloated pig tripe. Often, you'll see reviews here that have a line in them about such-and-such movie being the worst movie they've ever seen. I try not to say it. Welp, changed my mind after this one. This has made my "Worst" list with a bullet. If you cant see whats coming at every turn of this movie, see a doctor, or lay off the drugs. Two hours of transparent, unmoving, unbelievable, boilerplate suspense. Juliette Lewis in the role she was born to play, the psychotic trailer trash strumpet. I'm going to jack the Blockbuster clerk up when I return this steaming pant-load for not warning me ahead of time.

Rating:
Summary: Mike Figgis.... You should have known better!!
Review: Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone... both of them respectable actors. With a cool poster and some clever trailer, you would have tought this is good suspense movie. Well, it's not. In fact, it's so atrocious that it will probably earn "cult" status, in the "so bad is good" category.

Stephen Dorff is so annoying as the villain here, and Juliette Lewis is so wasted, that you simply scratch your head trying to figure out what the hell wasn everybody thinking.

Aargh, enough. Skip this mess, that's all.

Rating:
Summary: Please, what is that?!!!
Review: Man, what a sad excuse for a thriller!! Absolutely nothing works here. I almost cried watching Dennis Quaid embarrass himself, and seeing Juliette Lewis adding another steady step to finish her career once and for all...

This movie is boring, slow, pedestrian, and it causes no fear or scares. The plot holes are big, I mean BIG.

This is the kind of movie that I think every executive in the stuido figured out it would be a turkey after the first preview, but for whatever reason they could not abort the release...

Rating:
Summary: There's Not Enough Prayer in the World to SaveThis One
Review: Cold Creek Manor has so many things wrong with it it's impossible to say what in the tiny little space Amazon gives to review so I'll save half the trouble. This is the case of having a strong cast ( with the exception of Dennis Quaid ) in a terrible movie that could have been much better if the screenwriters and director had taken the time to go through the film more carefully. The entire movie seems rushed but after the first half you'll be glad it is.

Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid have no chemistry and were terribly unconvincing. Even their fright was too fake to take seriously and it only made Stephen Dorff's Dale laughable. Cold Creek Manor stole key moments from better films and tries hopelessly to become the " Cape Fear " of 2003 but it falls terribly short. Juliette Lewis was unneeded as the wasted tramp ( and she's played these roles millions of times before ). I think Juliette's a good actress if given decent material. Like Stephen Dorff they can only be as good as the movie and this film was awful. As a Dorff, Lewis and Stone fan I had to hit myself upside the head wondering what the heck they saw in this movie except for dollar signs. Nothing could have been enough to star in this pitiful, wannabe thriller that sinks before it even swims.

Save your money. The economy is too bad for Americans to waste even a dollar on trash like this. I had a feeling it was bad that's why I waited until Blockbuster had it previewed and I still think I was screwed. For people who bought this full price I feel sorry for you. This is one of those movies that shouldn't have left the director's head. It is terrible and instead of trying to copy " Cape Fear " and " The Hand That Rocks the Cradle ", Cold Creek Manor should have worked harder to become a movie that wasn't laughable before even trying to be scary. It fails as a thriller at every turn. But if you enjoy tired cliches, go for it. After all it's your money to waste if you feel the need. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been good
Review: There was actually a lot of potential in the underlying story and premise but as all the other reviews have stated it was horribly executed with far too many inane logical flaws to allow one to become immersed in the film. Good cast, cood premise, good cinematography, bad bad bad script and execution. I really wanted to like the movie and get into it but I was simply unable to immerse myself. Most have already been covered but I'll leave a single example. Dennis Quaid is driving home from a bar and gets followed. He is speeding and hits a deer. The next morning his daughter's dead horse is found in the pool. Although Quaid insists he hit a deer the family suspects he killed the horse. Okay, so regardless of whether or not Quaid killed the horse or someone else planted it, there are some major issues. First, it would be fairly easy to tell whether a vehicle was responsible for a horse's death since the horse would have been standing and signs of impact very apparant. Blood was in the pool so apparently there was some type of wound - of course no one thinks to check it. Second, it takes a lot to kill a horse with a vehicle so it would have been loud and could not have happened poolside as the backyard isn't big enough and there is no driveway or anywhere to get more than 5mph of speed (and the damage would be a lot more significant than a broken headlamp if you hit a horse that hard). So that leaves an offsite accident. Now, if a horse is killed by a vehicle (killing it instantly, leaving no signs of impact, witnesses, or noise heard from anyone close by, and just a basic damaged headlight on a pickup) someone is going to have to move it to the pool. That simply can't be done by one man without some major issues or leaving the horse intact. Horses are not small animals as to where a single human can hit one, throw it in the back of a pickup and dump it in the pool. Even my wife was just taken aback by the jump in logic here. We didn't even bother to pause it while we backtracked to figure out if we had missed something - and if this was the only occasion in the film, I wouldn't be writing this review. So much more could have been done with the story and it ends up being blantantly obvious with huge gaps in plot logic.