Cold Creek Manor
The decisions we make as individuals define who we are. Using that hypothesis, Cooper Tilson (Dennis Quaid) is an idiot and favored contender for worst parent and husband of the year. Most people see a red flag warning. Cooper must be color blind. How else can you explain the actions of a man who would move his Big Apple family into an old, decrepit country mansion?
Not just a mansion, but a mansion guarding a secret, and not just any secret, but one of those chilling, violent secrets everyone in town talks about in hushed whispers. What sort of man would invite, and then offer a job to, the previous occupant, a creepy guy (Stephen Dorff) whose pent up anger yields unexpected violent outbursts.
So why would a seemingly normal father and husband subject his family to such danger? To create artificial suspense. Without it, “Cold Creek Manor” would have no reason to exist. The film is creaky and damp, another exercise in horror that’s more silly than scary. “Cold Creek Manor” is definitely one film you can’t judge by its cover.
On the outside “Cold Creek Manor” looks like a tidy little thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone and directed by Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”). Covers can be deceiving. Open it up, and “Cold Creek Manor” is nothing but a checklist of better moments from other films, barely held together by the clueless performances of Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone.
Figgis, a director known for his attention to character, whips up plenty of gothic scares, but they are of the “boo” variety and do little but jar the audience awake. Every one of the characters seem to be going through the motions, investing little if any honest emotion. That’s because the characters created by writer Richard Jefferies live in a vacuum, completely oblivious to the inherent dangers of moving into a cursed house, or inviting psychopaths into your new home.
The complete lack of surprise puts the audience ahead of the characters, a frustrating advantage that slows down the pace of the film. For the plot to work, the victims must do and say things that make them appear stupid. Including the locals and the audience, everyone is in on the joke but them.
Honestly, how long can people play dumb before you want to grab them by the collar and slap them around until they come to their senses? Cooper makes more bad decisions than an Enron accountant, letting life and the screenwriter walk all over him until his testicles finally drop and he becomes a man. Peckinpah did it better with “Straw Dogs.”
KILLER REAL ESTATE
Up a “Cold Creek” without a paddle
COLD CREEK MANOR
Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Wilson, Dana Eskelson, Christopher Plummer. Directed by Mike Figgis. Rated R. 119 Minutes.
LARSEN RATING: $4.00
