Cold Creek Manor is aptly titled. Aging veterans Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid, looking bored and tired, sleepwalk coldly through a creaky, numbing, seen-it-all before retread. The normally creative British director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) has produced the kind of movie, more formulaic than a Math 32 problem set, that Hollywood churns out with its eyes closed.
Cold Creek Manor had the potential to reinvigorate a slumping career or two. This is Sharon Stone's first film since 2000, after recovering from a near-fatal brain hemorrhage and a divorce. But while it's good to see the Basic Instinct temptress working again, her choice to play the boring, nondescript housewife role begs the question, Why this?
Consider this scenario: A past-prime, aging actor/actress who has fallen through the cracks surfaces, signs on to a great project and attempts the comeback film. Sometimes it works. In this case, it didn't.
You've already seen Cold Creek Manor, of the trite family-endangered-by-neighbor-with-dark-secret genre, most likely in a better incarnation. Martin Scorcese's remake of Cape Fear comes to mind. Manor borrows elements from every classic horror flick, without improving upon any of them: the abandoned well, the butchered horse, the rooftop confrontation. It's not laughably bad, it's not enjoyably bad, it's just bad.
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