New Yorkers get a crash course in the more dangerous aspects of moving to the country and buying a "handyman's special" in this thriller from award-winning director Mike Figgis. Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) are a wealthy couple who have grown tired of the high stress of life in New York City and are looking to move to someplace with more breathing room. Upstate, they find a mansion in the village of Cold Creek which has fallen into disrepair after it was repossessed.
Convinced the house has great possibilities, The Tilsons buy it, and with a little hard work Cooper, Leah, and their two children are soon living in their dream home. Unknown to The Tilsons, the house used to belong to a lifelong Cold Creek resident named Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff), a ne'er-do-well who ended up behind bars. After he's released from prison, Massie makes it clear to the new owners that he wants his home back, and before long Cooper and Leah begin learning the disturbing truth about the history of the mansion -- and that many Cold Creek residents don't take kindly to new arrivals. Cold Creek Manor also stars Juliette Lewis and Christopher Plummer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
... a good-looking thriller by an excellent director with strong performances from Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid -- yet it's oddly flat, with an exasperating plot, lots of strange turns and hardly any legitimate scares.
At the beginning, Cold Creek Manor almost makes you believe it could deliver all that and more. Instead, it follows the weary, well-worn path of so many contemporary scare-fests.
In mechanical terms, Figgis can't seem to generate anything resembling a genuine startle or moment of suspense, and his sense of internal dramatic logic seems as cracked and flimsy as the tiling on the estate pool.
Figgis relies on Quaid's performance to convey the perilous dynamics of his character's threatened masculinity, and the performance produced by this trust is solid gold.
A watchable but unspectacular thriller about a family of New Yorkers who move into a big country house with a sinister past that brings dangerous consequence for the new occupants. The film builds slowly gathering a bit of mystery and suspense then gets a little livelier towards the end. Really good cast too but with
mixed performances. A good time-filler but there's nothing memorable about it. Plot-wise it's been done before and a lot better.
February 18, 2011
Lee ?
Super Reviewer
Tense thriller about a family who move into their new home. They are soon targeted by the old tenant who has a dark secret and wants them out. Good cast.
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