Cold Creek Manor | | Cast : | Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff | | Director : | Mike Figgis | | Studio : | Buena Vista Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Dolby | | Released Date : | September 19, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | January 25, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | September 05, 2005 | | Summary | I told my wife not to rent it . . . | Content
 | And she didn't listen. We were bored out of our heads. I left her watching the movie and went to read. From what I saw it was a one dimensional plot with one dimensional action and pointless screaming. You are clearly aware of who does all of the bad things in the movie . There is no suspense. The plot is retread you've seen a thousand times. Not interesting or worth renting (let alone buying)in the least. Fortunately, it was only a 99 cent rental and that was about 98 cents too much. To be fair, I'll give them an "e" for effort. That amounts to about 1/2 of a star. It is not even deserving of a full single star.
Save yourself and do not rent this movie. it is not worth your time. Or mine. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 25, 2005 | | Summary | It's a stinker | Content
| Again, as happens far to often, good cast squandered in a lousy movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | Generic work from Mike Figgis | Content
| The Tilsons are a quiet Manhattan family that decides to move out from the "Dangerous" city to the country side where they feel it would be better to raise their children. They find a run-down estate called Cold Creek Manor and purchase it from the bank, who had foreclosed it from Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff) who went to prison for Manslaughter. When they move in and begin renovating it, Dale appears again and Cooper hires him to help renovate. Things happen that causes Cooper to suspect that Dale is not the helpful person he first sets off to be and Cooper, a documentarian, begins to study the history of Cold Creek Manor and finds some sinister history that theatens his family.
This movie was directed by Mike Figgis, a director who has had made good suspense movies such as "Internal Affairs" in the past and is considered to be pretty respected by Hollywood. However, he is given such a poor script that is filled with cliches and puzzling character motives that he is left with nothing to work with. And on top of that he does not lead with strong direction with all the characters. Take the first 10 minutes. Cooper, a guy who seems like he is doing fine in Manhattan, suddenly finds the city to unhealthy for his children and he, his cosmopolitan wife and city kids suddenly move, not into the suburbs (like Greenwich or Long Island) but a remote farm in a city filled with stereotypical, city hating hicks. Yes, the script is poor at showing the Tilson's disdain for the city as a place to raise children, but Figgis doesn't help by providing us with anything other than an unfortunate potential accident.
Figgis and the script also does a poor job explaining the history behind Cold Creek Manor. All we know is that it belonged to a sheep raising family called the Massies with a domineering grandfather and there was some pedophilia type of pictures that show up. The fact that Dale's previous family disappearing doesn't even appear until Cooper finds a retainer in the ground that one of the Massie children was wearing in a picture in the last third of the movie.
Another strange development is the appearance and acceptance of Dale Massey in the movie. If a guy was snooping around the house uninvited, I would not offer him a job. But the Tilson's not only offer him a job, but also give him lunch and don't even bother discussing how creepy he is after he leaves. I mean, are they all that dense? (Except for daughter Kristen).
Maybe the movie could have been saved with a clever plot twist or superior atmosphere, but that is nearly missing. It get a touch interesting when the find the Devils Throat, but it is a ripoff of "The Ring". The ending is even worse because it is provides the prototypical dumb hick who thinks he's smarter than the city folk, against the innocent, quietly intelligenct city folk who has to fight back against Redneck Rage (you know, the rich taking what belongs to them in their backyard). It is handled with such generic aplomb, I was certain I had seen this ending before many times, even though I could not name a movie off the top of my head.
Dennis Quaid plays Cooper with a fearful, submission. Cooper is the usual city-riche liberal who thinks he is doing good by providing for the local ilk. It is a character that is paper thin and Quaid does not attempt to waste his talents (he is also sort of a emotionless actor) improving on his role. Sharon Stone as the cosmopolitan Leah (even the name smells of Yuppee) is the executive fast tracking wife with questionable ethics and a sense of guilt. She plays her limited role with more realism and I could even image her being a person in real life (imagine that!).
However, the two antagonists are horrible. Stephen Dorff plays Dale. Dorff, who looks like a twin brother to similarly coiffed Craig Sheffer, plays the dumb, revengeful antagonist. He has been pulled directly from the "Bad Guy's Handbook". He does the typical things that a bad guy does. He kills people in his way, he treats his woman badly, he chases the protagonist in a car chase then disappears, he kills something that's near and dear to the protagonist and his family and he also has his over the top moment at the end of the movie revealing all his motives and his hate. Of course, Stephen Dorff is a generic actor whose body of work I never really liked from the beginning (he even made character Deacon Frost in Blade generic). And there is Juliette Lewis, whom I think really has defiencies in the brain. She plays a woman who gets beaten by her boyfriend, he kills her sister and yet in the end, she goes to his grave to show her love (because he seems pretty good in the sack). I mean, in every movie from Kalifornia to Natural Born Killers to Strange Days, she appears to be a dimwit in her role. Nothing changes here. Maybe Figgis owed her a favor and put her in this role out of sympathy because she no reason for existing.
Anyway, this movie is a bust, even with it's favorable cast and director. If you want suspense, wait for the anticipated Mystic River and save your hard earned dough...Rating: C-
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| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | Not as scary as I was expecting | Content
| For some reason, I thought this film would be scary. It wasn't. It's nothing that no other thriller hasn't already given us, except with this, we get Sharon Stone, who can't crack a smile, and the adrogynous little girl who was also in Panic Room, and a very obvious reference to the Ring movies. So obvious I got it.
BUT on the other hand we get the downright lovely Stephen Dorff (now more famous for his romance with Pamela Anderson), get that fag out your mouth, and a rather surprising performance from Christopher Plummer. I thought this guy was old in Sound Of Music. Well, he's even older now, unrecognisable under that white beard, but gives a really good, memorable performance, despite the little screen time he gets.
It's obvious a lot of this movie was cut, as there's a lot of subplots that are still left in, but not given much screen time as originally. The subplot with the topless photos of Sharon Stone - what the hell was that all about? Was she having affair? She admitted she nearly slept with her boss to get that big job, but didn't. And there wasn't going to be a romance between her & Stephen Dorff's character, although it was implied, but it was very subtle. It would have been interesting to see more scenes with Dennis Quaid messing around with the old family photos & everything, I thought the film was going to lead in a whole different direction with that, but it didn't. There was no point of the children being there, they could have easily done the whole movie without the children. The girl was there to be angry with the dad, the boy was there as an excuse to get out of the city and into the country.
Juliette Lewis, now trying to be a singer, with her band Juliette & The Licks, does show her age a wee bit in this film, there's always something not quite right. She's not your stereotypical beautiful woman, but she's sexy, and she can work it. At least she's decided that long hair looks a lot better.
There also seems to be huge chunks of time missing. One minute the girl is grumpy to be seen hanging around with the other girl with the pony, the next minute she's got her very own pony. There's obviously a lot of time gone missing between Stephen Dorff's character going to work on the pool, and the pool being completed, but for more obvious reasons.
If you're new to thriller movies, then this is the one to rent/buy, but if you're an old hand at these kind of things, then pass by, unless you really fancy it.
And I definitely prefer Dennis Quaid. Randy Quaid is a waste of time watching, I don't understand him. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | Really ought to have been made in Britain with an unknown cast | Content
| With a more low-key theatrical release and no big-names stars Cold Creek Manor might have had some more credibility. Director Mike Figgis has no real experience, or business, in Hollywood movies and the mere fact that this got such a big release may be part of the films downfall.
With such marketing, word-of-mouth and hype that a Hollywood film gets one always expects something crowdpleasing. It's clear when watching Cold Creek Manor that Mike Figgis is more at home making small British movies that are not exposed to such harsh critisism and are generally accepted as being good even though they are nothing special.
There nothing much thrilling about Cold Creek Manor. But Stephen Dorff does manage to create some amount of tension with the crazed psycho character he plays. The rest of the film seems like an awkward mix of Pacific Heights and The Ring, despite some moments of genuine atmosphere that reminded me a lot of the Myst video games.
In a diluted, no-brainer, who-gives-a-damn way Cold Creek Manor makes for an above-average nights entertainment. But just don't expect anything mind-blowing.
And can someone tell me where the Cold Creek is?
The DVD is in very good looking 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with a great Dolby 5.1 soundtrack that's ten times more dynamic than anything in the film. |
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