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The Movie: Although some considered it a comeback vehicle for Sharon Stone, "Cold Creek Manor" seemed to evaporate from theaters last year within a week or two. While this is a conventional drama/thriller, it's rather unusual territory for director Mike Figgis, who recently has turned to experimental features, such as "Timecode", where four interlocking stories were presented on-screen at the same time. "Cold Creek" focuses on Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone), a couple who feel the need to move out of the city after a couple of events start to tire them of the chaos of urban life. They find a large but rather creepy old house in a small country town that seems friendly, yet somewhat secretive. Cooper is a documentary filmmaker, which leads to a curiousity about the family that lived in the house before they moved in. No surprise that most will see where this is going, or at least think they do. While the trailers seemed to make "Cold Creek" out to be some sort of haunted house thriller, there's really nothing supernatural about the film and, more disappointing, nothing much thrilling about it, either. It's one of those films where you think something's going to happen and you're waiting, and waiting, and waiting. The "twist" turns out to be well, that nothing much happens at all. In one particularly laughable scene, the daughter finds "EVIL" scrawled into the ground in front of an old tree behind the house. Making matters worse is the fact that none of the family members are well-developed characters, while Stone's is pretty much unlikable - moving about a group of seemingly well-meaning locals, she states, "Hey, I'm from New York City!" Stone's performance is rather limited and unimpressive, while Quaid has done better elsewhere. Kristen Stewart doesn't make much of an impression as the daughter, although Stephen Dorff is rather remarkably creepy as one of the former residents of the house, who comes back to do work on the place. While Figgis goes for a rather slow, deliberate pace, he doesn't really manage to create much atmosphere, which would be necessary for this kind of a slow-build drama/thriller to begin to work. The picture also suffers from some decisions by the characters that are idiotic and a running time that could have been tightened, given the rather uneventful nature of the film, by a good 20 minutes. "Cold Creek Manor" looks rather nice, with Figgis working with talented cinematographer Declan Quinn ("In America") to create some haunting images. The director's score isn't as pleasing, however, with most of his work on the music being remarkably heavy-handed and obvious. Other than that, this was a surprisingly dull feature that simply never gets going, despite occasional hints that it'll finally start up. The DVD VIDEO: "Cold Creek Manor" is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen by Touchstone. This is a perfectly fine transfer, enjoyable in most regards, but als suffering from a few slight issues. Sharpness and detail are largely good, but the picture had some moments of softness and definition never appeared too exceptional. Some noticable grain was occasionally spotted, but most scenes appeared free of it. No marks, specks or other debris were noticed on the print, though. Edge enhancement was briefly seen at times, but really never became much of an issue, nor did a few slight instances of compression artifacts. The film's vivid, warm color palette appeared well-rendered, with nicely saturated colors and no smearing. Black level appeared strong, while flesh tones looked natural. SOUND: "Cold Creek Manor" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. The film's sound mix is subtle, but effective. Surrounds kick in for some well-placed and well-timed ambience, which gives a satisfyingly chilling effect to a couple of scenes. The thunderstorm that plays out over the final scenes also sounded quite enveloping. Again, I didn't much care for the score by Figgis, but thankfully, it doesn't get that much screen time. Audio quality is fine, as sound effects and dialogue remained well-recorded and clean. EXTRAS: Director Mike Figgis offers a full-length audio commentary for the film itself, as well as for a couple of the 8 deleted scenes (one of which is a bad alternate ending, with a cameo from Figgis as an interviewer). We also get the featurettes "Rules of the Genre" and "Cooper's Documentary". A few "sneak peek" trailers round out the DVD. Final Thoughts: "Cold Creek Manor" was a dull and uninspired thriller that never really went anywhere or offered much. Touchstone's DVD edition offers fine audio/video quality and a couple of decent supplemental features, but I wouldn't recommend the film. 
Film Grade The Film 1/2 * DVD Grades Video 88/B Audio: 88/B Extras: 80/B- |