COLD CREEK MANOR (R) **

Directed by Mike Figgis. 118 minutes.

Starring Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Christopher Plummer, and Dana Eskelson. Released by Touchstone Pictures.

The only thing creakier than the house that is Cold Creek Manor is the script that is Cold Creek Manor. A low rent Cape Fear from a big name director, the film is occasionally spooky, often visually creative, and relentlessly illogical. Talented actors are forced to plunder through numerous scenes that defy any sort of common sense and take part in moments that seem like the sample of a sample of a sample from another movie. There is nothing that we have not seen before here, which is surprising considering that the movie was directed by Mike Figgis, a director that often specializes in the unique. Figgis is most well known for Leaving Las Vegas, the brilliant mid-90s film that rebooted the career of Nicolas Cage and ended up being one of the best films about addiction ever made. He also directed both Time Code and, earlier this year, Hotel, films that, while not exactly worth celebrating in the content department, broke/created new cinematic formats. He also created other such good films as Internal Affairs and One Night Stand.

Other than a sporadically interesting visual style, there is nothing that sets Cold Creek Manor apart from other thrillers of this sort, namely Cape Fear or other films in which demented locals terrorize urbanites. In this particular film, Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone play the Tilsons, New York City residents that decide, after a fairly unserious accident that could have happened anywhere, they are going to move away from the city. Yet, when some real trouble starts brewing in their new mansion-sized house with the local bully and his girlfriend, they give little thought to moving back to where they originally came from. This is only the first in many lapses in logic during the film. Oh, and how do we know that Dale Massie (played as a good old boy psycho by Stephen Dorff), the object of the Tilson’s disaffection, is a bona fide nutcase? Because he looks at them, grimacing, in all seriousness and tells them “you don’t know anything about farming.” If that’s not a hint, then…

Anyway, the Tilsons, who sort of do come across as unfriendly when they move into the Manor, decide to hire Dale out of sympathy that he no longer owns the property. He cleans their pool and fixes up their house. Then, in a scene that makes little sense, he has a falling out with the family. This leads to an obvious scene where Quaid heads to a local dive where he runs into Dale. After a few attacks of snakes upon the family and a dead horse in their pool, which I would really like to think was not an ode to The Godfather, Quaid has his family pack up and head back into New York while he, and I’m not kidding, sticks around to find “more evidence” that Dale might have committed a horrible crime in the past, which I won’t reveal. Now let’s get this straight. A demented local has been terrorizing your family. It is obvious that he is not going to relent. He may have even killed some people before. So, you make a wise decision and send your family back to the city. Why exactly, do you stick around to find more evidence? Most likely because if you left then there would be no more movie.

Then right smack towards the end of the film comes a rather creepy, if not predictable, and beautifully shot scene in which the Tilsons search for some clues in the woods (oh yeah, and Sharon Stone has now returned to help Quaid solve the case). The cinematography, with its buckets of rain pouring between the woodland trees is quite eerie, though the scene ends with a character trapped in a well that is a little too similar to The Ring. Unfortunately, the woods scene is followed by the silly, inevitable climax in which the villain and heroes sit and talk to each other just long enough so a plan can be devised to thwart one another. I’m starting to miss the good old days of Michael Myers (in the original Halloween, if you actually had to ask), who said absolutely nothing and just went about his business. Nowadays, it is the Talking Killer, the evildoer who must, before dispatching his victims (though his loquaciousness often results in his defeat), tell them both why he is a Bad Person and how he is going to kill them.

The performances here are decent, most likely because Figgis has quite a few talents on board here- Quaid, Stone, Dorff, Christopher Plummer as Dorff’s nasty father, and Juliette Lewis. Figgis is a talented director and here he displays some visual originality. It’s the script that is the deadweight here. There are entirely too many scenes that seem to lack any sort of logical behavior. For example, why, when a mad dog killer is stalking you, do you 1) not move or 2) leave all your windows and doors open constantly? The dialogue is not exactly memorable either, nor the story. By this, I am not implying that every film has to be a beacon of originality. Most films these days borrow ideas from other movies anyway, but there is usually that added bonus, a twist that separates the film from the others of its type. Other than some visual flair, Cold Creek Manor is pretty much the same old thing.