Cold Creek Manor (2003) User Reviews

OK but not that good

[KP-Nuts · 6/10 · 25 February 2005]

OK we've all seen this type of film before, family leave problems and life in the city for a new start in the country only to find far greater and real problems than those they left behind.

Unfortunately it's just not done particularly well in this movie. It starts well and gives the impression it will lead into some kind of haunted mansion movie once the family arrive at their new home. However, what happens is far less exciting.

Quaid gives another solid but unremarkable performance, Dorff is passable but his character never seems as threatening as he should be, Lewis plays the kind of role she seems to fit like a glove. The one thing I realised from this film is Sharon Stone has no impact or presence on the screen at all, I mean she had an impact on me when I was 15 and first saw Basic Instinct, but hey. She is one of the few actresses I would actually advise to only accept films with nudity scenes involved.

The direction is only apt, you feel there is meant to be some kind of attraction or sexual tension between Dorff's and Stone's character but whether due to the fault of the Director or actors it does not work at all. It is also at times very predictable, which is not a good factor for a thriller.

The film does have it's redeeming features, it does at least keep you interested enough to follow through to the climax just to see what happens. It is one though you will not be revisiting soon again.

Another Hollywood Horror/Thriller Miss...

[unakaczynski · 5/10 · 1 November 2005]

Cold Creek Manor

Here's yet another film that I believe suffered from some poor advertising. Or, at the very least, some misguided advertising. As I recall when it was released, there was a strong vibe to those ads that indicated some sort of haunted house or ghost story or something. So it came up on Encore, I remembered those ads and wanted to see what kind of haunted house story I was going to get. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone? Sounds alright. I'm not generally a big fan of haunted house pictures, but I figured I'd give it a look. At least it's rated R, right?

Well, well, well... So. So where are the ghosts and sh*t? Turns out this is not the ghost story I thought it was... A big, rich family from "the big city" (I think it was Boston or New York--of course--everyone's from either those cities or LA these days) gets fed up with the hustle and bustle and insanity of living in the city and decide to move out to the middle of nowhere. They stumble upon a glorious old house in glorious old decay--Cold Creek Manor. The house is owned by a bank ready to off-load it for whatever they can get for it. Apparently, they could get around 200 grand for it. Sh*t, this house is huge! The property goes on forever! There are houses in the Twin Cities here that are 1/6th as big as the house in this film that cost more than that! Anyway, eventually, the last surviving, capable, member of the family that once lived there turns up, fresh from prison, and a little annoyed that his house is all gone. So he starts terrorizing the family all slowly and methodically and weirdly... Or does this family just have some really rotten luck...? Well, at any rate, Dennis Quaid thinks the guy is out to get them and goes mildly berserk trying to prove it. He's a documentary filmmaker, and it doesn't help matters that he's doing his current documentary on the family that lived in that big ol' mansion before he and his family moved in.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--The acting is generally pretty good (one scene I'll point out later is the exception)

--Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone after all. She's done well to prove she's more than just a remarkable specimen of femininity--she's also an actress, after all.

--Impressive sets--that house is beautiful--from the decaying look of it's years of neglect to it's remarkable half-restoration--it's a great lookin' place to live.

--Fairly interesting story.

--Pretty good chemistry between Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid, they're characters (the married couple) endure arguments and crumbling marriage with hints of adultery.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The atmosphere was pretty mild. Nothing special, and nothing doing a really intriguing job of building tension.

--The usual plot-point that one part of the mystery can only be solved by a chance discovery by the children is, of course, present here too.

--Average Cinematography.

--Some very mild blood/gore scenes. Mostly, with just some blood--and a skeleton or two. Nothing major. Looked good, but wasn't anything special.

--Only mild violence. Fight scenes, mostly.

--Very mild nudity, and one sex scene--through window blinds no less. The nudity is pretty much relegated to pictures--photographs--of the wife of the last member of Cold Creek's original family.

The Bad:

--Sharon Stone kept her clothes on. Okay, I'm kidding. She did, but that didn't hurt the film in any way.

--The music varies from average, to simply obnoxious. We get scenes that contain mild drama, but have a piano pounded on with a feverish, near lunatic intensity. Here's an example: Car driving down stretch of road, someone's worried about an argument--overcast with DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNNNNN!!!! as loud as the howling of hell beasts in hell.

--One exceptionally poor scene where the family is apparently threatened by generally harmless American mountain snakes. The snakes slowly slither to and fro through the house and everybody freaks out with enough overacting to match any Keanu Reeves scene. It just wasn't scary. Not at all. Maybe, if there were tons and tons of snakes--like in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" it would've been mildly scary. But whole family is running away from a terrifying torrent of roughly 6 snakes. The scene, very simply, wasn't believable. I almost laughed at it--it was that stupid.

--Some clichés and cheesiness pop up occasionally. No real surprises.

The Ugly:

--Occasionally feels like a "Deliverance"-style "big city folks out 'n their element" movie--but not as good as "Deliverance" (which is a classic).

Memorable Scene:

--Dennis Quaid punches Sharon Stone in the face. Oopsy!

Acting: 7/10 (except for that one scene) Story: 6/10 Atmosphere: 5/10 Cinematography: 5/10 Character Development: 7/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 (not much to note) Nudity/Sexuality: 2/10 (quantity) Violence/Gore: 6/10 Sets/Backgrounds: 8/10 Dialogue: 7/10 Music: 3/10 Writing: 6/10 Direction: 6/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 5/10

I'm giving it a 5 because the film suffers from a few too many problems. It's probably good for fans of horror/thrillers to take a look at, but is likely too mild for hardcore horror fanatics to care about. Better, maybe, for the average movie-goer looking for a light thriller to spend an evening with.

www.ResidentHazard.com

Standard and Bureaucratic Thriller

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 3 May 2005]

The director and producer of documentaries Cooper Tilson (Dennis Quaid) and his wife, the executive Leah Tilson (Sharon Stone) have a stressed life with their two children in New York. After a minor accident with their son Jesse (Ryan Wilson), they decide to move to the country. They find a huge old house with furniture and a large field for a bargain and decide to buy it. They make a garage sale to get rid of the possessions of the former owner, and a couple of days later, Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff) visits them, introducing himself as the previous owner, who lost the house for the bank after being sent to the prison for three years for accidentally killing a man. He asks for a job in the repair team, and Cooper accepts to hire him. The life of the Tilson family changes after the arrival of Dale, and deep secrets about the former family are disclosed.

"Cold Creek Manor" is a Mike Figgis' thriller, having names such as Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Julliete Lewis and Stephen Dorff in the credits; therefore I expected a great movie. Most of the time, I kept saying to myself: "-Surprise me, surprise me". Indeed this film surprised me, in a bad sense: it is nothing but a standard and bureaucratic thriller, full of clichés and incredible situations. For example, who would hire a weird man, former owner of a property and that has just left the jail? Or when Cooper is threatened, why he stays alone in the isolated house, with doors and windows completely open? Or when Leah and Tilson are threatened, why do they look for refugee in the house, climbing to the higher floors, after seeing their car on fire? This movie is a typical commercial product, broadcast on Saturday night by the largest Brazilian open network: shallow, predictable and full of stars. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Garganta do Diabo" ("Devil's Throat")

Cold Creaky Manor

[Poseidon-3 · 21 September 2004]

Many audience members of this thriller were disappointed (mostly thanks to the misleading trailer for the film) because it lacked the supernatural element they thought would be present. They needn't have complained. The film is complete science fiction because not one character in the entire thing remotely behaves like a human being! Quaid and Stone play an NYC couple with high-end careers and two mouthy, spoiled kids who, after one of the children is nearly creamed by an SUV, decide to pack up and move to the country. They find a huge, dilapidated house that is exceedingly reasonable in price (this part of the movie has been done over and over in the cinema from "Burnt Offerings" to "The Watcher in the Woods" et al.) Before they have completely unloaded all the debris from the previous owner (who was foreclosed upon during a jail sentence for manslaughter), the owner (Dorff) shows up and begins to encroach on the desired peacefulness of the family. Quaid hires him to refurbish the swimming pool and before long, Dorff has decided to do almost anything to rid the house of the new owners. The rest of the film deals with the battle of wills between Quaid and his family and Dorff while Quaid seeks to find out why Dorff is so bent on driving them out. Even if Dorff got the family to leave, the property would still not be his legally and he is clearly in no position to buy it back, so even the basic premise of the story lacks solidity. That's the least of the problems, though. Throughout the film, everyone in it acts like a complete idiot. Quaid (in a surprisingly emasculated role, not that that's entirely a bad thing) makes so many stupid decisions at every turn. He does appear handsome and tan in the film, but his character is pretty dim. Stone overacts horrendously. Noted for her cool, chilly roles in films like "Sliver", "Intersection" and "Basic Instinct", here she is a hopelessly edgy bundle of nerves who squeals and screams every time anything unexpected happens like someone coming to the door or coming out of the water and having someone at the edge of the pool! This is apparently a lame attempt to have some "frightening" clips to stick in the trailer so that people wouldn't know that the film is actually a lengthy struggle between a family and a bum and not a haunted house chiller.

Dorff does succeed with the impossible. He creates a character who is unbalanced and threatening and vulgar, yet also sexy and even sympathetic to a point. His is the most interesting work in the film, though his character is pitifully underdeveloped. Other cast members include a well-cast Lewis as a sleazy, boozy tramp, Eskelson as the planet's most useless Sheriff and Plummer, who steals scenes lying down and nearly comatose, as Dorff's craggy, cruel father. Without question, one of the fall-down funniest scenes in the film is meant to be one of the scariest. Ridiculously, each member of the household comes into contact simultaneously with a different terrifying snake (at the precise same time!) They then proceed to bounce through the house like pinballs, screaming at everything and nothing and over emoting to the point of true hilarity as they encounter snake after snake. This scene alone guarantees the film a spot in bad movie heaven. Many other senseless and unintentionally funny moments happen during the "scary" parts. Another horrible aspect of the film is the annoying and inappropriate musical score which, amazingly, was written by the director! He undermines his own film's suspense and tension with such dreadfully bad (and badly timed) music cues. The film is unbelievably illogical and bad in more ways than there is time to detail, but it is watchable, especially if one is in the mood to laugh rather than cower.

Mold Cheek Hangover

[TDeMona · 3/10 · 6 February 2017]

Naturally the only reason to watch this for me was the fact that it had Sharon Stone in it. Unfortunately, though I was expecting absolutely nothing, I somehow got less.

The movie takes place within the rustic country side, in the world of the rednecks, the folksy, "The Real America. The Small Town America". Thusly it must belong to the "city idiots move to the country side and get buggered, either literally or figuratively, by hicks" -genre. This is not merely flogging of the dead horse anymore, but waving your whip over the nearest glue factory. Yes, Deliverance was and is a brilliant film, but it also contained such elements as a plot, some common sense, mood and characters you didn't hope to die from the word go.

The story is, in all of it's generic depression, this: Sharon Stone and her husband, a documentary movie director guy, move out of the city since their children are either bred wrong or it's just natural selection that makes them run in front of cars like it's going out of style. They manage to find a huge Wayne's Manor with it's own forest, the yard the size of a golf course and a swimming pool for about $3,50, since "it's foreclosed, yo, so the bank sells it real cheap like". But who would have know, the former owner shambles in looking for a job.

I hated this character from his very first scene. And I don't mean that he is written to be a hateful character; I mean I am amazed how it is possible to write such a generic, pointless, irritating and uninteresting main antagonist. Of course also the dad starts to immediately hate this newcomer and this feeling is mutual. The audience merely hates everybody, since they are all equally boring, pretentious, over reacting bunch of monkeys.

My very favourite series of events begins when the redneck dude saves the children from a snake that is in the pool. When he himself gets fired, the whole house is suddenly full of snakes. And every family member magically places their hands on the slimy buggers at the exactly same moment. I can hardly imagine the mountain of Oscars that must adorn the window sills of the responsible parties' trailers. And somehow the horrendous musical score manages to make this embarrassing mess even stupider than it already is. Which is an considerable effort.

Of course the movie is also eternally long. After 30 minutes I had spent all my hospitality, but the thing just keeps chugging along. To my peer Sharon Stone fans: let it be known, that she does what she can with the stuff she is given, but her role could just as easily be played by a marionette made out of dead rats. Juliette Lewis is also present, wasted like everything else.

In the name of honesty I have to report that there were few rather decent scenes near the end, and they bothered to even pay off some of the things that are set in motion. This is good, because almost an hour and a half is used to nothing but these preliminaries. Also, the ending is so sickly anticlimactic and the zenith of predictable, that even the makers of silent movies would have laughed it out of the room. You could easily foretell everything that happens, and usually it looked better made and more visionary in your mind.

So, this was, in a word, wretchid. I was lucky I saw it on the television and didn't pay a dime. Even though I would like to urinate on my audiovisual equipment just to make sure no remnant of it remains within my apartments threshold.

Not the sharpest tools in the box

[alphonsia · 1/10 · 9 May 2005]

It's 4:30 a.m. Top executive Mom groans, thumps off the alarm and staggers out of bed. She's got an early morning flight. Respected film-maker Dad mumbles, "Remember to reset the clock." She doesn't, of course.

It's 7:56 a.m. Dad squints at the clock, hollers, "Oh, s**t! Kids, up, up, up, up!," followed by, "We're late. Your mother forgot to reset the alarm. Again!," as he slams together that staple of popular cinema, the breakfast no-one has time to eat.

It's never occurred to either of these Movers and Shakers to buy a second clock. Their alarm-challenged children clatter downstairs, the daughter whining, "Ohmigod, it's late. I have to be at school early today!" Buy an alarm clock, kid. Better yet, read the little book that comes with your beloved mobile phone and see if it has an alarm function.

After hanging Mom for the clock fiasco, Dad decides "the city" is to blame for all their woes. The Green Acres Four treat themselves to an unauthorised viewing of a crumbling country estate that's been foreclosed by the bank. The house is furnished. There's an unmade bed. Yet they roam freely, snooping through family photos and papers.

They buy The Old Massie Place at a knockdown price. Dad's inspired to create one of his "labour of love" documentaries. This consists of "creating a time-line" (i.e., skewering vintage photographs with thumbtacks) and having a goggle at some highly personal Polaroids of the previous owner's wife. Out of "miles" of home movie footage, a poolside scene featuring this attractive young woman and her daughter in bikinis seems to be especially pertinent.

When "Just Out of Jail" Dale Massie shows up looking for work, Dad ignores the protests of his vulnerable teenage daughter and hires the guy for unsupervised work around the house. This is even stupider than the alarm clock situation.

The only vaguely plausible reason Dad could have for inviting this guy into the family home is to help with the documentary. Dale's brimming with family anecdotes ("my grandmother built that pool in 1926"), but Dad acts bored and exasperated when he's around. In a classic scene, Dad's tinkering about on his laptop with archive footage of NYC. Since his budget to too low to hire voice-over talent, his own voice is droning on about cast-iron architecture.

Wielding one of the farm implements Dad doesn't have a clue about, shirtless, sweaty Dale explains that it's a killing hammer, designed by Grandpa Massie and his blacksmith. Articulate, informative and sleazily attractive, he winds up his narrative with, "Look at the spike. Straight into the brain. A small little clean hole right through the skull. Bam! No bone splinters. No pain." Grab your camera, Dad! This is Good Stuff! But no, Dad can't wait for Dale to hightail it out of the house so he can go back to making The Most Boring Documentary in the World. Throw in Dead Meat the Pony and Mobiles Don't Work in the Valley, and you've got all the ingredients for a nice long snooze. Don't forget to set the alarm.

Why, Mike Figgis, why? (1/2*)

[Ronin47 · 1/10 · 19 October 2003]

Otherwise known as "Cape Fear For Dummies", this is a hideously lame "suspense thriller" that is not suspenseful or thrilling. At all.

Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone play a married couple who decide to move out of the big city after one of their kids is almost hit by a car. So they buy a big, dilapidated mansion in the sticks called "Cold Creek Manor" and start fixing it up. Then, showing tremendous smarts, they hire Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff), the creepy former owner of the house, to help fix it up. Even though they know he just got out of prison, AND the fact that they just found him roaming around in their house. Guess what? He's a psycho!

Since there's really nothing of worth in this movie at all, I'm just going to offer 10 reasons why you SHOULDN'T see "Cold Creek Manor"...

1. It's so predictable and formulaic that to call it by-the-numbers is an insult to numbers.

2. The name of Quaid's character is "Cooper Tilson". What kind of name is "Cooper Tilson"? The kind you'd only find in a movie.

3. You'll get depressed when you realize the same guy who directed the great "Leaving Las Vegas" (Mike Figgis) also directed this piece of crap.

4. The huge amount of plot holes, stupid coincidences, lapses in logic, and crummy dialogue will lead you to believe that the script was written by a 4 year-old.

5. At one point, while playing hide-and-seek, one of the kids finds part of an old wooden sign on the ground that actually says "EVIL" in big letters. Oooooh, scary!

6. When Massie lets loose snakes in the house, they all attack each separate family member at the EXACT SAME TIME. That's convenient.

7. It's boring.

8. It's really, really boring.

9. It's so boring that you'll leave knowing the exact number of lights that go up and down the theater aisle.

10. It sucks.

Chilly, fun thriller. Undeserved of its bad reputation.

[NateWatchesCoolMovies · 7/10 · 25 February 2016]

Reviews and reputation be damned: I enjoyed Cold Creek Manor and it's chilly, mean spirited thrills at the expanse of a family entwined in nasty decades old secrets. I know it's not the greatest flick, and doesn't quite deliver the freaky effect promised by both trailer and cover art, but it's still a lurid little freak show of backwoods danger and sweaty menace. Dennis Quaid plays Cooper Tilson, relocating his family to the country, where they have purchased a run down mansion which used to be a grand estate. Problem is, the manor has a dark and sordid legacy of danger, the overgrown property hiding a murder already years old. The family's arrival awakens long buried demons among the roughneck locals and gradually starts to threaten them with mounting unease. Sharon Stone is reliable as Quaid's wife, and a very young Kristen Stewart plays their daughter. It's ragged edged Stephen Dorff that gives the film life in his intense portrayal of local lowlife Dale Massie, who grew up in the manor and provides a hanging presence of unease for the Tilson family. Juliette Lewis plays yet another snarky rural skank, and there's an unnerving cameo from a barely coherent Christopher Plummer as well. Sure it's cheap thrills and doesn't contain much substance to flesh out its doom laden style, but it's it's a lot of fun and I revisit it quite a bit.

The Cardinal Sin of movies

[CMUltra · 3/10 · 6 April 2005]

Cold Creek Manor 2003

Ugh.

Slow paced, slow witted. Poorly written. The most interesting character was the bad guy (Stephen Dorff) and he was as cookie-cutter as the rest.

What happened to Dennis Quaid? I'll tell you. He recognized early on that this movie was a dud. His performance throughout ranges from sleepwalking to hysterical over-acting.

Sharon Stone has an excuse. She's not often accused of being a good actress or choosing good movies (though The Quick and the Dead is one of my all time favorites).

It's not that the story has plot-holes. It probably does but the fact that it's so mind-numbingly boring makes that irrelevant.

And that's really the Cardinal Sin of a movie, no? A movie can be bad, yet entertaining (Plan 9 From Outer Space). A movie can be offensive to the point you don't want to watch it, but still well done. A movie can be insulting in it's blatant propaganda, but still maintain interest and create discussion.

This movie is just boring.

Fairly enjoyable

[UniqueParticle · 7/10 · 29 April 2020]

Could definitely be better but not as bad as some have said! Dennis, Sharon Stone, and Stephen Dorff are pretty good despite the sloppiness! I love Juliette Lewis in almost anything, her personality seems similar in all the movies she's been in. If the city isn't good enough the country side can be a bit brash with creeps and unfortunate things to deal with; just my creative thought.

Nothing new to see here, move along

[roach-20 · 1/10 · 29 January 2005]

Cold Creek Manor is just a collection of sad, tired "thriller" clichés. I know it's a bad sign when I'm rooting for the victims to die. Characters say and do things for no reason, apparently, other than the writer wanted to make the movie last just a little bit longer. Rest assured that if a course of action makes no sense or is just a bad idea in general the story will follow it.

As if that weren't bad enough, the characters are all cardboard cut-outs without any depth. Seemingly all the women in this movie are, in the words of Mr. Massie "cheatin' whores." Small town America is once again Hollywoodized into too-close-for-comfort chumminess on the one side and we don't take kindly to strangers xenophobia on the other. Once again the movies tries to impart to us the dangers of moving to the country. Although Quaid's mild-mannered, pushover character works for the most part.

Finally, the sound editing leaves a lot to be desired, lines are muttered requiring the use of subtitles to understand some parts. And the music that is supposed to evoke a sense of suspense just comes across as annoying.

Amazing how the major league critics can crush a good flick!

[AlternateViewpoint · 8/10 · 10 April 2004]

I've seen way flakier movies that were smash hits. Most Hollywood thrillers & action movies have to be viewed with a willing suspension of disbelief anyhow. People do things they'd never do in real life. They ask stupid questions & accept answers that no one with a high school education and an IQ in even low triple digits would accept in real life. They walk away from falls, car crashes and burning buildings that would kill real human beings. They *split up* to look for the ghost/axe murder/evil demon! So, what's wrong with this one? I got involved. I got tense. I was on the edge of my seat.

I liked it.

The tension was built up without any reference to gory scenes, just creepy camera angles, shadows, the wind blowing curtains, the increasing feeling that Something Really Bad was just around the corner.

You get to see Sharon Stone looking almost like an ordinary human being. Dennis Quaid is his usual edgy self. Stephen Dorff does a great slide into madness.

If I'd believed everything I read about it, I never would've picked up the DVD. It's not Hitchcock, but it's definitely worth watching. Check it out.

not so bad

[anthromayer · 6/10 · 12 March 2004]

It isnt as bad as all of the critics were making it out to be. It wasn't as scary as I expected but there was just enough suspension for me to keep watching. some.The only difficulty about the movie is that your not really sure about who the characters are or "were" through out the movie, or if they really needed to be introduced at all. For the first 40 minutes of the movie I was puzzled as to what was going but eventually near the end the puzzel pieces seem to fit together. Much of the movie is based upon a sometimes un believable or non realistic view of reality bu essentially it is a movie worth watching if you haven't anything else to do. I give it one thumb up.

Dennis Quaid versus snakes

[petra_ste · 3/10 · 15 May 2014]

The kind of aggressively bad psychological thriller which can kill the career of a director, Figgis' Cold Creek Manor starts with the classic scenario of a wealthy family (Dennis Quaid is the father, Sharon Stone the mother, Kristen Stewart one of the children) moving to an isolated manor and facing its mysteries.

Perverse credit is due to the movie because, usually, you can add to this kind of review some condescending "That scene was fine" or "Acting was solid" comment; it takes a special alchemy to make nothing work. Quaid is awful, Stone is awful, Stewart is awful, Dorff as the vengeful previous owner is awful, Lewis as his morally loathsome belle is awful. Pacing is a disaster, tone ranges between tedious and involuntarily funny - a scene with the whole family running around the house pursued by snakes, led by Quaid hysterically screaming at the top of his lungs, is the kind of comedic gem the Scary Movie series wishes it could equal.

A subtext about class rivalry and sexuality is so obvious - with Dorff as the aggressive country yahoo, Quaid as the emasculated intellectual and Stone as the unsatisfied wife - the script shouldn't have bothered at all, since it ultimately goes nowhere. And yet I'm sure people in the production were smugly satisfied for, say, the "clever" symbolism of the snakes scene. Sorry, but it's better to go for pure schlock than to be so ponderous and trite.

3,5/10

Misleading and ill-marketed thriller...

[MovieAddict2016 · 11 March 2004]

Stupid horror film that was marketed as a supernatural mystery but is rather a dumb mortal tale of two city slickers (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) who take their kids out of New York City after a near-fatal car crash and buy a huge manor in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately for them, Dale, the old owner, gets out of prison and comes looking for them, eager to cover up a murderous secret that has been buried inside the house (or around it?) for years.

Dennis Quaid is a documentarian and his wife does nothing but mope about. As he does everything in the house, including making breakfast, she whines that she does too much. Just one of many laughable moments in this straight-to-video-style thriller that boasts a good cast giving watered-down performances.

They knew what they were getting into.

The movie is dumb. This could have made a great supernatural thriller. That's what I thought it was, anyway.

2/5 stars.

• John Ulmer

An Awful Thriller That Lacks Orignality and Thrills

[christian123 · 2/10 · 8 July 2005]

Cold Creek Manor is an awful thriller that lacks originality and thrills. Putting an end to their days as slaves to the hustle-bustle of city life, Cooper Tilson, his wife Leah and their kids pack all their possessions, and move into a mansion in the 'sticks' of New York State. Cold Creek Manor is in shambles, but Cooper and Leah have unlimited time to fix the house up. All's well until Dale Massie, the house's former owner, gets out of prison, looking to reclaim his birthright place, by any means necessary. The plot doesn't sound too bad and the trailer was pretty creepy. Unfortunately, this was another case of good premise ruined by poor execution. Everything in this movie is below average and there is nothing worth recommending from this movie. The acting is surprisingly bad even with a talented cast. Dennis Quaid does a rather poor job as Cooper and doesn't really seem to be trying. Sharon Stone probably did the best but even her performance wasn't anything special. Kristen Stewart and Ryan Wilson play their two kids and give decent but ineffective performances. Stephen Dorff and Juliette Lewis round out the cast and both give decent performances. Mike Figgis has actually been nominated for an Oscar for directing. Why he decided to direct this mess is unclear but he did a poor job with this movie. The script is clichéd and weak and it also suffers from big plot holes. The film is very dull as this 118 minute feature seems to drag on forever. There are absolutely no scares to be found here. In fact, all the scary scenes will probably make you laugh. The ending is very predictable and nothing kills a thriller more then predictability. Its like they didn't even try to write a decent screenplay. The movie at least has a creepy mood to it, big house in a small town but they couldn't capitalize on that and failed to make an engaging thriller. In the end, this is a terrible film that fails to succeed in pretty much everything. Rating 2/10, avoid this movie at all costs.

Cold Creek Morons (Spoilers Abound)

[TheSnerd · 1/10 · 15 September 2005]

It came on whatever damned channel I had the TV on and I decided to start watching it. Sadly, no amount of therapy will be able to correct that grievous error on my part.

I am still awake, desperately trying to find a way to rationalize that complete waste of 2 hours and 5 minutes of my life. I think I would have felt better about all of this if someone had put a gun to my head and forced me to watch this tripe. Of course, I would have opted for the bullet, but I think my captor would have ended their own life before they got around to putting me out of my misery. This is to be a warning to anyone else who may accidentally watch it.

DON'T DO IT!

here there be spoilers

Actually...the whole movie is a damned spoiler. Nothing is a surprise. OK, one scene is a surprise. The whole family gets surprised by snakes, at the same time, in different rooms of this huge mansion. Now, if this had been the supernatural thriller that the trailers had led you to believe it was, this would be OK. THIS ISN'T A SUPERNATURAL THRILLER! It's about a psycho redneck that had already slaughtered his family and decided that he didn't want the evil city folk to live in "his" house. That psycho redneck planted the snakes in the house, at least, a few hours before the crazed snake attack!

The snakes must have all worn synchronized watches and planned this thing out. The snakes also must have flew in some snake friends from other countries because many of them aren't from around here, boy. THOSE WACKY SNAKES! The scene was supposed to be scary. It was pure comic gold. Another reviewer mentions something about Dennis Quaid screaming like a little girl. The thing I love the most, is the fact that they all ran to the roof instead of out the front door. Why?

There are too many ludicrous scenes to break down for you, so I'll skip to the end. The climactic battle that leads to the "city folk" killing the evil redneck is so effing ridiculous... GAH! My brain crawled out of my head and slapped me around until the credits quit rolling. My brain was BULLS**T over that nonsense. I can't even describe it.

To hell with it. I'll try anyway. Basically, Bumpkin Boy was all set to cave in the skulls of the Evil City People, hammer styles, when suddenly,they trapped him with a rope! It wasn't even around his neck. He had more room than the three of them, combined, to get out of it. Hell, you could tell that he was HOLDING ON TO THE ROPE TO KEEP FROM SLIPPING OUT.

It was at that point that my brain started beating the snot out of the rest of me.

They didn't even strangle him to death. They took some time to nod at each other and proceeded to scream "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" as they broke the glass and...

Oh hell. I can't even type the ending. My brain just found a knife. It's had enough.

I still don't think I am properly conveying the true level of "suck" that this movie possesses. I'll try it with a visual:

>>>>>>>--------<<<<<<<<

See that? That has more depth than Cold Creek Manor.

It is a demon film.

If you want to experience Cold Creek Manor without having the displeasure of watching it, you could always stare at a blade of grass whilst slapping yourself in the face with a bag of wet mice for 2 hours and 5 minutes. No matter what you do, it will still be better than Cold Creek Manor was.

Don't see it. Not even the synchronized snake attack scene is worth it.

Cold Creek Manor is a bore.

[lewiskendell · 4/10 · 1 February 2016]

Despite the presence of Juliette Lewis, Dennis Quaid, and Sharon Stone, Cold Creek Manor just comes off as a made-for-TV movie. A boring made- for-TV movie. It's predictable and unforgivably dull.

The plot is as cliché as it is thin. A husband and wife move from the city to a large house in some unspecified rural area, because they think it will be good for their relationship and their two children. The house they move into has an unknown, sinister history that puts the entire family in danger. Blah, blah, blah. It's marketed as sort of a mystery/thriller, but there is precious little mystery or thrills to be had here.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time with this review, because I already wasted more than enough watching the movie. There was no reason for it to be made, let alone watched.

A good, solid escape

[eorlingas · 7/10 · 16 June 2004]

Maybe I had low expectations after reading the other reviews here, but I found Cold Creek Manor to be an enjoyable couple of hours.

It was nowhere near as bad as most of the other reviews suggest. I turn trashy movies off after five minutes, but I was watching this with interest right to the last scene.

Sure it was formulaic and no masterpiece, but the acting was fine and the story was interesting enough.

The mood of the movie was perfect for watching at home on a cold winter's night.

Worth a look.

The script should have been condemned

[skymovies · 2/10 · 28 October 2004]

Allegedly, Sharon Stone has an IQ of 154. Not that you'd know it from some of the dodo-dumb thrillers she's signed on for: Sliver, The Specialist, Diabolique... but this is her most moronic choice yet. Still, it provides her best comedy role in ages.

Supposedly intelligent people move to an unwelcoming new home and allow an unhinged ex-con/ex-inhabitant to roam around freely. From this wobbly foundation, it becomes clear very early that this is going to end up in a heap of cinematic rubble.

There is some fun to be had with the increasingly obvious 'twists' ("Aw, what a lovely pet pony"; "Wow, Mr Psycho knows all about snakes!") and laughable behaviour of the characters ("My husband's got the jitters so I'll repeatedly sneak up behind him"), but ultimately both viewers and participants should be ashamed of themselves.

Eric Stoltz with a brain hammer.

[screamingfoot · 6/10 · 4 March 2004]

I'm sorry, but Eric Stoltz could easily be dispatched with a single

kick to the gonads. I find it hard to believe that he could hold two

fully grown adults at bay, regardless of the brain hammer.

This movie showed some promise but I expected it to have more

back story. There was only a hint of the creepyness that Dale

Massie had in his past. And hello??!, coordinated snake attack

indeed. Not to mention the stoopid showdown scene at the end.

As thrillers go, this one missed the mark. It would have been

served better by having the antagonist talk less about what he was

going to do, and be seen less.

0 out of 10 - minor spoilers

[everyones-a-critic · 1/10 · 22 March 2004]

Warning - minor spoilers about the first half hour. Like you will care if you bother to watch the film.

Well its been years since I have been moved to write a review of a film on IMDB, the last time to brutalize the film "Damage". Its not bad films per-se that upset me so much as films that promise so much more (or even as in this case promise at least a half hours entertainment), and deliver so little. And thats right where "Cold Creek Manor" fits in - it just completely blindsided me.

Foolishly I didn't bother to read the IMDB reviews before renting this insult to turkeys. What suckered me in was the reasonable cast - they may not be everyone's favourites but they all can act well if they want to. However a plot like this could make Olivier look like a chump.

Lets start with the "plot" then. Documentary filmmaker and high-flying business wife along with two kids decide to move to the country and buy a re-possessed home in order to avoid high-flying wife's potential infidelity and, err, traffic accidents? The entire first 20 minutes of the film could have been skipped, as well as the whole tearful admission scene later in the film. We just don't care enough about these people who can afford to take an entire year off to play house and buy ponies. I'd be on the side of the dispossessed locals - if only they had brains larger than walnuts. Anyway, the family apparently buy the house with the contents and proceed to go through them keeping bits and pieces that give them jollies. Father keeps some semi-pornographic photos of the teenage girl who used to live in the house, then hides them from his wife - then puts a whole bunch of other photos and documents in a timeline on the wall (my weirdo-meter is going off the scope here). The son picks up some colouring book with some kind of mantra and recites it over and over as well as the clothes from the young boy who used to live there (like father like son I guess). Dad also keeps some sharp looking hammers from the previous occupants hanging around on the wall. Doesn't anyone find this bizarre behaviour? WHY would you do any of this? Why would you want other people's old crap? Stereos and TVs maybe, but clothing and photos and deadly pointed hammers? No - thats just WEIRD AND STRANGE.

Dad then decides to make a documentary about the house. Like anyone would be interested? Then, while eating breakfast a hillbilly wanders in, announces he used to own the place and just got out of prison, is served breakfast, asks for and gets a job based on his "knowledge of the house". I mean he might as well have come in with "PSYCHO KILLER" tattooed on his forehead and a big pointed mallet in his hand dripping with blood, and these bozos would still have lapped it up. I mean somebody walks into my house and says oh I used to live here and there is either a body bag or a restraining order in their future. Now if this was just a standard "Don't go down into the darkened basement with no light, arrrgh, stop, no, arrgh" moment then OK - but its not. Anyway - things go downhill from there if you can believe it.

There is zero suspense in this film. There are zero plot twists whatsoever. The plot simply rambles along, forgets where it is, doubles back to pick up a cliche or two and then repeats the process all over again. The soundtrack will telegraph a "gotcha" moment which we either knew was arriving half an hour before or which isn't really a "gotcha" at all. There are so many plot holes, dead end storylines and reality-suspending moments that one thousand words is not enough space to truly ravage this fetid garbage masquerading as a film.

Really, honestly - I could have written a better film at the age of twelve. I am struggling with the concept that somebody actually sat down and wrote this and believed it to be good. I struggle further with the knowledge that some executive read the screenplay and thought - "Wow - what a great idea, lets throw out all those other scripts we have been looking at and make this masterpiece". WHY?

Not bad

[miagy · 8/10 · 24 February 2006]

After watching this movie I was a little bit confused that it has so low marks. I liked the atmosphere and the environment of American countryside with this beautiful house life from a dream. The story line was really nothing special but not bad as well. I could stand it. But the main reason I gave 8 out of 10 is the scenery as I said before.The atmosphere of new - old house you are moving in with all the old stuff and secrets maybe secrets lit in me the attention. Also lately I found myself loving movies from surroundings of American small cities,villages and nature - I don't know why but that is the way it goes in my case. So if you want to see a southern redneck in the action and want almost smell the charms of countryside wilderness do not hesitate.This was good one.

Am I the only person on the planet who liked this flick?

[=G= · 6/10 · 2 March 2004]

"Cold Creek Manor" tells of a family of four who move from NYC to a run down rural estate with a tell-tale history. With no spooks or paranormal nonsense, no screaming nightmares, no black cats screeching as they leap from the shadows, this film avoids horror and sticks to the suspense/thriller drama genre as it follows Mom (Stone), Dad (Quaid), and the kids from edgy to creepy to scary to thrilling, gathering momentum as it works through a less than inspired story. With a good cast and solid production value, "Cold Creek Manor" plays well as a B-thriller but peaks and ends predictably. Burned at the stake by the critics and stoned by the public, this flick is by all rights a real turkey. So, for what it's worth (and it ain't much), I enjoyed it as some mild no-brainer escapism. Recommended for drama junkies into thrillers but keep expectations low. (C+)

Dull addition to the psycho-thriller genre

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 18 April 2016]

Back on its release in 2003, I remember thinking that COLD CREEK MANOR was yet another spooky supernatural flick about a family moving into an old home and being terrorised by its ghostly inhabitants – I imagined something like the diabolical remake of THE HAUNTING. Suffice to say, I never bothered watching it. Seeing it on television the other night, I decided to give it a chance – and I admit I had nothing better to do at the time.

I was surprised. Not because this film was any good – it's not, it's just as bland and predictable as I'd feared – but because there's no supernatural stuff going on here whatsoever. Instead this is a pure psycho-thriller, harking back to those early '90s days when the likes of THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE had audiences sitting on the edges of their seats as normal families were terrorised by crazies. The problem with COLD CREEK MANOR is that it's just plain boring.

I didn't even go in wanting or expecting originality – so when I saw there was none, I wasn't disappointed. Some effective shocks and scares would have helped, but instead we get one or two silly moments, like the laughable 'snakes in the house' interlude which comes off like some lukewarm attempt to mimic ARACHNOPHOBIA. The script is mundane, dragging the straightforward, no-twists-here plot line out to what feels like an unbelievable length, and it's one of those films that had my mind wandering and my eyelids struggling to remain raised, especially in the second half.

The film's biggest problem is the acting. Dennis Quaid, an actor seemingly stuck in a 'mundane' bracket since the 1980s, has a Harrison Ford haircut and that's all you'll notice. He's bland, dull, an utterly unlikable leading man – I was hoping something unpleasant would happen to him, but it never does. Sharon Stone doesn't seem to be putting much effort in playing Quaid's wife, and none of the supporting cast members stand out – Juliette Lewis is here, typecast as 'kooky' as per usual, while Stephen Dorff seems to be trying to channel Billy Zane's personality in DEAD CALM but he comes across as a laughable, non-threatening villain.

Some bloodshed, some decent shocks and some atmosphere could have made this cheesy, scary or worthwhile. It has none of those elements, content instead to rehash the same old ideas, leaving plot holes wide enough for a 4x4 to drive through and generally being a pain in the backside. They could have had fun with this premise, but the po-faced seriousness of it all makes it a stifling watch. Leave it well alone...