Cold Creek Manor

Often pretentious independent filmmaker Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Time Code) must have needed a paycheck pretty badly to sign on for this no-surprises, straight-to-video quality, family-in-peril psycho-killer thriller--and whatever he was paid, it was too much. Laden with every dusty convention in the pantheon of bygone horror movies (including the creaking old titular house) and brazenly foreshadowing every fright with all the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros, Cold Creek Manor attempts to evoke the essence of Cape Fear but fails miserably. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone do what they can to flesh out their oblivious city folk characters who buy a cavernous, overgrown countryside fixer-upper in a foreclosure, only to be terrorized by the bankrupt, emotionally unhinged redneck parolee (Stephen Dorff) who owned the place. But the plot toils along in a predictable rut--made downright grating by the overuse of fisheye lenses and a "soundtrack" of someone relentlessly banging on the lower registers of a piano--until the inevitable thunderstorm-accompanied showdown finale. In a word: yawn. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Mike Figgis, the “Cooper's Documentary” behind-the-scenes featurette (7 min.), the eight-minute “Rules of the Genre” featurette, 22 minutes of eight deleted scenes (including an alternate ending) with select onscreen commentaries by Figgis, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a cinematic bellyflop.] (R. Blackwelder)