An action-packed slog

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An enjoyable film, with a good creepy character. City people in a small town discovering something more sinister. Worthy of a watch.

Cold Creek Manor (2003): Dir: Mike Figgis / Cast: Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Stewart: One of the worst haunted house movies ever filmed. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone play a married couple with two children who are tired of city life and decide to move into an oversize outhouse. They hire the former owner to touch up the place and continually scare the sh*t out of them. His name is Dale Massey and the mood swings unexplainably during the dinner scene. Then snakes infest the house, and Quaid sees Massey's true nature at a bar where he smacks his girlfriend who happens to be the Sheriff's sister. Then a dead horse appears in the pool. Quaid suspects Dale of killing his family, etc. If we waited patiently then perhaps the kitchen sink would have made a cameo. The climax regards one factor falling through a skylight because that was the best dimwitted solution the screenwriter could muster up. Director Mike Figgis previously made Timecode but provides none of that artistic talent here. Quaid is flat and Stone is reduced to cardboard. Stephen Dorff gradually shifts to overacting as he becomes more psychotic. Juliette Lewis plays Dale's airhead girlfriend. Kristen Stewart has an early role as the daughter and this memory is one she will hopefully erase. Pointless bore should be buried under a ton of rock. Score: 0 / 10

I am not used to horror thriller films and only watched it because it was starting on TV the moment I sat on the couch. It is rather good, a good surprise, and I'm used to watch Bergman, Godard, Hitchcock, Kubrick, etc... not that that matters.Everyone seemed to get the idea from the trailer that something supernatural was going to happen, I didn't get that idea.The scenarios and the props were realistic, didn't had bad camera angles, no major or noticeable flaws, one particular shot of a window was actually very good. The dialog wasn't bad. The psychological behaviors, actions and reactions give the proximity of the real emotions one must feel under serious pressure and fear. The personalities of the secondary characters correspond to those of cliché movie personalities, the kind that are really uncommon in real life and very common in other movies, so that's a down point. Another down point is the focus on the dark figure of Dale as soon as he appears, I think it is real, it is there, his psychotic personality is there from the beginning if one is paying attention but it shouldn't have been mystified. That way it would give the thinking viewer the realization that everyone can be a murderer or a crazy person.Some say there is meant to be a connection, a spark so to speak, between Dale and Leah and it is not well portrayed. Wrong! Dave gives her the sweet talk, the concern and the attention, he gives her dirty looks. She on the other way is completely innocent on account to her guilty conscience on saying yes to sleeping with her boss but never actually doing it and realizing she loves her family.It was surprisingly good and it left me tied to my chair. Some said the not having the supernatural haunted house factor took the scary part away. I think the fact that it might actually happen makes it more scary.

For reasons which don't really matter (which is just as well, because they certainly don't make sense, the Tilson family (dad: Dennis Quaid, mum: Sharon Stone, daughter: pubescent Kristen Stewart, son: some kid) decide to get out of the city, and move out to the sticks where they buy a huge house for chump change because something bad happened and it got repossessed by the bank. They have obviously never seen a film before, because only bad things can happen in such circumstances, right? And so they do, starting when Stephen Dorff, the son of the family who used to live there and newly released from jail (which should be another warning, right?) arrives, talks them into hiring him, and things go pear shaped. Big time.This film rejigs multiple clichés into a not-very-new order, and flirts with the notion of having a supernatural element before dropping the idea. Even if you have never seen a film before, this one is going to hold few surprises for you. It is arguable that it is worth watching for a relatively high profile cast sacrificing art for a paycheck, and for l'il Kristen Stewart sulking away like mad years before she was called upon to do the same thing in the Twiglet movies.If you find yourself with an afternoon with nothing to do, and this comes up on TV (which it won't because of the bad language), find a book instead.