Cold Creek Manor Review:

Cold Creek Manor is a cliched and preposterous thriller that is so poorly put together that it becomes more funny than thrilling.

Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and Leah Tilson (Sharon Stone) are tired of living in New York City and after an accidental scare with one of their children, they decide it is time to move away. So the family of four, which includes a teenage daughter and a young boy, pack up and move to the country into the large mansion called Cold Creek Manor.

Auctioned off for a relative price, and left with all of the previous owner’s belongings, the family begins to remodel their new home to accustom their lifestyle. Cooper himself is a documentary filmmaker and is intrigued by the past pictures, videos and artifacts he finds from the previous homeowner.

The previous owner, a riddled ex-con named Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff) shows up one day to the house and offers his services to help clean up the place. As terrible incidents began occurring to the Tilsons in their new home, Cooper realizes that Dale and his past have something to do with it.

The film then ventures off into yearning to be a edge-of-your-seat thriller, ala Scorsese’s Cape Fear, but becomes nothing more than a jumbling of choices that are obviously set up for surprises, but come across as very dry. This is one of those films that relies heavily on sound, music, wind, and lighting to attempt to sinister a eerie atmosphere, but the predictability and real stupidness of the film brings its down to being a made for cable thriller.

Mike Figgis, who previously directed Leaving Las Vegas and a decent thriller called Internal Affairs, does so many obvious things with the crazed psycho off screen that nearly none it could be taken into account for. As if one man could get away with all he does in this film without even being questioned, even if he lives in a little town where everyone knows each other. The Tilsons themselves are also real dunces, the children find a specific clue to the crazed villain’s past, but do not decide to reveal it to their parents until after their have been snakes in the house, their pony was killed, among other things.

Figgis and his screenwriter are to blame, the sequencing and placement is done so obviously for their benefit of when they are ready, not when the audience is. The acting does not fare much better, Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone deliver wooden performances, and Stephen Dorff once again pulls out his angry notions to play an evil bad guy. Juliette Lewis also arises as a battered girlfriend in the same role we have seen from her time and time again. This is just a horrendous film.

Picture & Audio

The transfer of the film to the disc is stellar as usual with most DVDs. There are no scratches, but there are a few moments during the climatic scenes in the rain that are very dark, and could have been brighten just a tad

The sound of the disc is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and is efficient throughout. There are many musically driven scenes, along with the whirling of winds, rain, and creeks in the floorboards. The sound is clearly transferred and heard.

Extras

• Audio Commentary by Director Mike Figgis

Deleted Scenes and Alternate Ending
There are over a handful of deleted scenes included on the DVD along with an alternate ending. Most of the deleted scenes are weak, and were rightfully cut by Figgis. There is an option to where Figgis does give commentary to a few of the scenes that were cut. The longest last over 15 minutes and includes Cooper and Dale getting into a few intense games of pool. Figgis talks how he brought in a pool expert to give Quaid and Dorff some pointers. The scene is more of a hustling one, than a confrontational one, in which Figgis really talks significantly about the scene, except that he was inspired by such films as The Color of Money to shoot it. Another deleted scenes has Leah bringing Dale and his workers some lemonade while they are cleaning the pool, the scene adds to her flirtation with Dale. There is also a scene where Cooper looks on his cemetery as Dale’s father’s funeral proceeds, as well as extensions of scenes with Cooper and Dale tussling close to the film’s climax. These scenes offer up how Cooper received cuts on his face, and why Dale is soak in mud, because Cooper actually pushes him down the “Devil’s Throat,” but of course he miraculously climbs out without a rope or any help.

The alternate ending has Cooper and Leah being interviewed in their house by a magazine writer played by Mike Figgis. He is interviewing them about their best selling book, Cold Creek Manor, which they wrote together after all of the trauma they went through. The couple talks about how important the mansion is to them, and that they were charged with manslaughter for Dale’s death, but the charges where thrown out and the town supported them. The scene then cuts to Juliette Lewis’s character placing a rose of Dale’s grave, as she did in the original ending, but it is expanded showing that she is carrying Dale’s child. Her sister is also with her, confined to a wheelchair and non-attentive after what Dale did to her. I believe this ending is sillier, since the notion of Dale and Ruby’s bad seeded child will grow up like daddy and terrorize the Tilsons in Cold Creek Manor 2.

“Rules of the Genre” Featurette
This featurette includes Figgis and screenwriter Richard Jefferies talking about the different rules of the psychological genre, which include surprise, confrontation, cut to the chase, tempo, among others. Though Figgis seems to know all of these elements, he is contradictory to what he delivers in this film as a thriller genre. The writer and Figgis seemed content about the film, as they also explain their certain ideas of the psychological aspect in Cold Creek Manor. This featurette is also as close as one will get with a behind the scenes featurette of the film.

“Coopers Documentary”
In the film, Dennis Quaid’s character of Cooper is the progress of making a documentary about the history of Cold Creek Manor. This featurette shows the footage shot on Cooper’s DV camera for the documentary, in which most of the material revealed is not included in the film. The material includes photographs of the Massie family, old footage and a family tree. There are extensive interviews with Figgis and Quaid about what the character’s vision will be with the documentary, as well as Figgis explaining how much of a character the documentary is to the film.

Trailers
• Hidalgo
• Veronica Guerin
• The Haunted Mansion
• Alias
• Tron 2.0 (game)

Overall

Cold Creek Manor is a terrible thriller that is really thrown together by a veteran filmmaker that’s work is reflective of an upcoming student filmmaker. The script is dull, and the actual would be thrills become humorous due to the film’s poor construct. The DVD has solid sound, and the featurettes are applicable expansions of the film. However, it does seem that Figgis contradicts himself in the “Rules of the Genre” featurette, in which he states the simple rules of a psychological thriller, but does not live up to his ideas or notions with this film.

The Film: D
Video Quality: B
Audio Quality : B+
Extra Features: C

DVD as a whole: D

Jospeh C Tucker

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