Hey folks, Harry here with a Crazy Guy and his endearing tale of woe upon taking in COLD CREEK MANOR. From the sound of what Crazy Guy is describing below, the film commits the agonizing atrocity of being boring, putridly predictable and lightly lame. We'll see as we hear from others out there, but for now... well, for now it isn't looking all that good. But realize that this is a very early screening and they can fix many of the problems with editing, music and possible reshoots... Let's hope, after THE ROOKIE, Dennis Quaid was looking good again and I'd like to see Sharon Stone doing good work again, the last thing I want to think of her as is the wife of the San Francisco Chronicle's editor... Here ya go...
Hey Harry,
I love the site, but I have never written anything for it. Well after tongihts screening I have changed my tune and I am ready to write in something. This "something" would be a review of Cold Creek Manor which used to go by the title of The Devil's Throat.
I want to start by giving a short summary of the film before I get into the review because I have a lot on my mind and I am just hoping that it will all make sense. The movie stars Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone (her first movie in like forever) as a married couple who decide to move their family from New York to the peaceful country. To do so they buy a large house that the bank had foreclosed on and decide that they could fix it up and make it their home. The problem is the former inhabitant of the home, Stephen Dorff, does not like that idea and in turn tried to get it back by all means necessary. That is basically the cut and dry plot. There is of course the "twist" subplot that is introduced, but its been seen before and therefore does not do much. Ok, now that I gave a little summary....let me dive into what I saw.
What I saw on the screen in the preview screening was not the worst movie I have ever seen, but it was pretty bad. The first 20 minutes of the film consists of the family moving into their new home. This section dragged till no end and it seemes like it went on for an eternity. Usually there would be an introduction to the characters and why they were moving and such. NADA. There is nothing but moving boxes and searching through their new house for what seems like forever. To even make this worse the music (hopefully only a temp score) was completely out of place and portrayed that something suspenseful was going to happen. There was nothing...i mean except for attack of the dust-mites and dirty furniture...absolutely nothing interesting took place.
The movie then goes into a little better territory with at least some plot develpoment and it goes on with Stepen Dorff trying to get the family out of the house. Let me start by saying that Mike Figgis (leaving las vegas) does not know what the hell he is shooting. He is terribly confused as to if this is a psycological thriller, an action ovie, or an artsy piece. He just does not have a clue becuase all three directing styles have been meshed into one and they just dont work. I dont want to ruin much, but the scene with snakes is good...he has bulit the tension and it is filmed very well...but then he loses all that he has built and goes into a dry 15 minute spell of nothing before anything else remotely interesting happens. It almost looks like he cut out entire sections of this movie and forgot to sew up the loose ends.
To make this review shorter lets just say this movie plays out like all that we have seen before and especially steals a great deal of its "twist" subplot from "The Ring", a far superior movie. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone do admirable jobs with incredibly weak material they are given, but Stephen Dorff steals the show as the mad-man. He takes every scene he has and just goes for the gusto. The music again in this screening was absolutely horrible and one of the work scores I have ever heard....even if it was a temp score it was piss-poor and the person who inserted it should be punished. There are a few good scenes of suspense but overall they are inserted with pointless scenes and a horribly cheasy ending. (Why does everyone have to do that "six months later" crap....cant they just film a proper ending?)
The audience that I watched this with really got into the suspense scenes but you could tell they just were not feelin the rest of the movie when they talked through the first 20 minutes and started to laugh when the ending of the film was being played out. (I even heard the guy behind me say it was the funniest movie he had seen in a long time....not a good sign...that guy need to get out) All in all I could see this moive being saved with a good score being added in, a bunch of scenes being cut and a new ending being filmed. It was not a complete waste, but it definitely needs some dire work in order to even be released to the public. In the end it looked like the audience mostly though the movie was fair and in the follow-up group session they even had to tell people they were not neede because they had too many people choose fair on the grading sheet. Well I guess that is it for me. My first revied I have written for this site is done and I am...well there is so much more to say...but I will keep it to myself and to any other who write in about this movie. It is sad that my first review had to be such a horrible one..but maybe next time I will see a better film...or maybe I won't...by for now..thanks.
The Crazi Guy
