Cold Creek Manor

Rating:
Summary: This movie is a writeoff, i give it an amazing ZERO !!
Review: Hey FOlks,

This movie is a writeoff, boys grab your gasoline, and lets commence burning this mutha F***a !!

E Z,

DOLEMITE

Rating:
Summary: Kinda slow and no surprises
Review: Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone could do so much more.

This movie starts out with Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone's family living in NY city, she with a high paid job and he working from home on low-budget documentaries. He's the house husband and she the breadwinner. A single incident scares them into abandoning their hectic city lives and they bail to the country.

Cold Creek manor is a crumbling mansion in the country, with a history. You see the surprise on the locals when a new family moves in. You know there is something odd from that. Ironically, they move in, with no history of the place and none of the locals offer any insights. Anyone who's moved into a small town knows there is always one busybody that has to fill you in, once you are committed. It just seems so vague and unrealistic here. Closing on real estate, selling and buying is a long process. They must have a great lawyer.

As time goes one, some unsettling items are found in the house and outside. Then a development forces Dennis Quaid to look further into the property he has moved his family into. Things go downhill from there.

I can't go further without ruining the few so-so surprises this movie has in store. There are a couple of tense moments. The real irony of it is, this movie is probably more like real life than all the slashers or other horror movies out there. This means you don't get the adrenaline rush, but it is somewhat more believable and boring unfortunately.

The characters are also off.
There is development in ways that make no sense.
Sharon Stone goes from powerhouse business woman to a timid housewife in flowered dresses.
Dennis Quaid goes from a inquistive documentary maker, to one with his head in the sand about this house.
The teenage girl is a sassy city snot, and changes to sassy country snot (OK this was predictable)
and the boy becomes obsessed with the items found in the house, but only enough to rattle a couple people.

There are a lot of underlying currents here that never are used or explained. It goes from tense to tenser and then really bad in a single scene.

Also there is a shot when they are being helped from the roof, where and a man strolls by in the background. Is this the director's attempt at an Alfred Hitchcock manuever?

Rating:
Summary: great movie made perfect with deleted scenes
Review: i saw this in theatres and begged my mom to buy the DVD. I absolutely loved this movie and the special features make it better. Rent the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: IT LEAVES YOU AS COLD AS THE CREEK
Review: This had a lot of potential, but it fails to entertain let alone scare the viewer. I wish I could figure out just what went wrong, but so much is wrong with this movie that I hardly know where to start. You know you are in trouble when the man of the house finds a stranger in his house and confronts him with nothing more than a blank stare. It just goes down hill from there. Soo much talent was wasted on this film that the only reason to buy it would be so that you know how bad a film can get.

Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining--and STUPID!
Review: I just watched this movie a few nights ago. What I remember is that throughout the entire movie I kept thinking, the script is horrible! I laughed out loud so many times at some of the lines and the constant poor judgement exercised by the parents (Played by Quaid and Stone)...not to mention the poor acting by Quaid and Stone. Just terrible.

My favorite part of the movie was when snakes were discovered in different parts of the house by each of the four members of the family at the very same time and they all freaked out and went running, in hysterics, through the house. It was the funniest scene I think I have ever seen. Snakes aren't aggressive as they are portrayed in this movie! Snakes avoid people! They don't snuggle up in bed with them! (hehe)

Highly predictable. Mildly entertaining. Not Scary. Not much of anything really.

Rent it before buying it.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't think it was that bad!
Review: I love these kind of movies, and although it wouldn't be up for any Academy Awards, it was a pretty good flick. I am somewhat surprised at most of the more negative reviews of this movie, and many of these were pretty harsh. Overall, it deserves much better than most of these people are saying about it. Check it out and make up your own mind. I read many of these same reviews, and still went out and bought the DVD. I'm not sorry I did, and plan on telling everyone I know about it. I am a huge fan of Dennis Quaid, and I really wanted to like this movie, I guess. Anyhow, it really has some "tense" moments, and the last 30 minutes were REALLY intense, I way I like 'em!!

Rating:
Summary: suhdididly-uck
Review: wow this movie blowsssssssssssss with the fire of 1000 suns. how on earth did he piece the retainer and the tooth to meaning that the family was dead? i mean if i find a hotpocket and a sock on the porch does that mean my brother's dead?!! i seriously thought that it was going to be great by looking at the commercials. dont dont waist your money renting this flaming piece of crap.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother!!!!!!
Review: This movie sucked A$$!!!!!!!! Don't even waste your time to see this flick. I mean seriously it is that bad.

Rating:
Summary: One Big Thrilling Mess
Review: Cold Creek Manor certainly seems like the kind of movie that would be fantastic to watch on a rainy night. The kind of movie that you can't watch with the lights off. At least, this is what I gathered from the previews. Instead, we get a huge mess of a movie that's bogged down with too much lame exposition in the middle. I thoroghly enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so, excited about how the movie was going to progress, but unfortunately it didn't deliver.

Quaid plays a documentarian who moves his wife and two children out to the country into a huge creepy looking house called Cold Creek Manor. The house is filled with photos and video from the previous owners. Quaid's character (I can't remember his name because honestly, the movie is hardly worth remembering at all) sifts through this stuff, trying to figure out the mysterious past of the ex-owners. Then along comes Dale (Dorff) who has lived in the house his whole life and wants to offer his expertise in helping the new family fix it up. He's creepy and unlikeable, and I don't know why they bother to keep him around. If that guy showed up at my house I would put up an electric fence and hire an armed guard. As the tireless plot unfolds, we learn that Dale has serious issues and secrets about the house and his past.

Despite the fact that this movie is tedious and overdrawn (Where was the editor when this movie was being made), the beginning will hook you in anyway. The middle is boring. And the end is wrapped up perfectly with a little pink bow in a completely anti-climactic way. While it has it's bit of thrill, it's nothing to jump up and down about-- the best thrill for me having to do with snakes.

I like Dennis Quaid, I really do, but this movie is just not worth seeing, no matter how much I like the guy. If you want to be bored to tears after getting all excited with the prospect of seeing a good film in the beginning, you better throw out this movie right away because you'll definitely be disappointed. The only amendment I'll give this movie is the fact that young teens may like it because it boasts a creepy house and Stephen Dorff.

Rating:
Summary: The Disappointing Return Of Mike Figgis
Review: Cold Creek Manor sees the return of director Mike Figgis to mainstream movie making, after his experimental phase that saw such incomprehensible 'arty' features like Loss of Sexual Innocence, Timecode and Hotel.I really do not know what to make of Figgis! Some see him as a visionary and original filmmaker, with a language bordering on the existential, while others consider him a pretentious and over indulgent director (mainly with the above mentioned films)..I seem to think of him as a bit of both..
For the director of the excellent Stormy Monday and Leaving Ls Vegas, can also baffle me with films like Hotel with its overbearing style, digital experimentations, and the ubiquitous and rather annoying multi screens that he seems to love so much.
So with Cold Creek Manor, I expected Figgis to be back in form after the break he had in 'art'land , and I must say that I was sorely disappointed.
It is not because the film is bad in itself..it is simply because I expected much more from Figgis and from his film . The problem with Cold Creek Manor is straightforward:
it is bland, colorless and as thrilling as the countless straight to video/dvd thrillers that litter the market.It does not add anything to the genre, in terms of plot or directing style, and I expected throughout the film something to happen, or a nice twist at the end that would make the 112 minutes worthwhile, but unfortunately it was not meant to be.
A family escapes the city to the country and buys an estate that was repossessed by the banks. The son of the landlord reappears after a stint in jail (because he ran over some guy!!) and he first befriends the new family, while we predict early on (from the very first scene) that his intentions are not as good as we are led to believe!!What follows is a series of events that had there been any prizes of predictability, it would surely take the biggest!
The house itself fooled me into believing that some sort of 'The Others or The Shining' deep secret lurking in its sinister past without the supernatural element, but all I got was an average crime story, the likes of which occupied Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote.
The actors had a tired look throughout the film, especially Dennis Quaid, however it was a delight watching the great Christopher Plummer even if his character was over the top.
Stephen Dorff was very good as the psycho ex landlord 's son , while Juliette Lewis was completely wasted as his trashy girlfriend.
This is all due to the fact that there was no direction, purpose or depth to any of these characters.
I still believe that Mike Figgis is a talented director who can deliver a far better film than this. Having said that, I strongly advise you to forget Cold Creek Manor,and hope that someone who can direct an intelligent and thoughtful film like Stormy Monday, can still impress the viewers again one day.