Cold Creek Manor

UK Release Date. 30 January 2004
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 58 mins
Director. Mike Figgis
Cast. Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Dennis Quaid, Kristen Stewart, Sharon Stone, Ryan Wilson.
Rating. 34%

Review.

With a filmography that includes Internal Affairs and Leaving Las Vegas, cinema audiences have come to expect anything from the British director Mike Figgis. From the artful fascination of the split screen of Timecode, to the experimental mess of Hotel, but one thing I didn’t expect when I stumbled across Cold Creek Manor was an utterly conventional, insipid horror. 

Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone star as the upwardly mobile couple (Cooper and Leah Tilson) who trade their apartment in the city to upstate New York and the remote, dilapidated country estate.

The film suffers from a preposterous storyline with too many disparate threads. Clichéd and implausible, plot twists are telegraphed, robbing Cold Creek Manor of any sustained suspense. 

Dennis Quaid is appalling. Sharon Stone escapes criticism simply because she is underemployed through the film - a relief on her part, I would assume. One scene - the discovery of an assemblage of snakes in the house - is farcical, such is the atrocious acting and feigned hysteria.

A thriller largely devoid of thrills.