Cold Creek Manor (Rental)

Director Mike Figgis (Liebestraum) sure loves his thrillers about buildings. In this effort from last year (2003) he chronicles the story of a family who move from New York to get away from it all… and buy way more than they bargained for.

Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and Leah (Sharon Stone) Tilson are New York high-stress workaholics who decide one day to get the hell outta there. They move to the country after buying a creepy old mansion for a song (one of the loving banks had foreclosed on the previous owners… isn’t it sweet when they do that?). The house is still full of memorabilia of the previous owners, the Massie family, and as they’re settling in, one Dale Massie turns up and tells how he has just got out of prison and could use a job. His wife left him and took their two children and he has nowhere else to go.

"I’ll be sure and buy the DVD with the $50 I got for fixin’ your pool…"

Before long strange things start happening to the Tilsons and the townsfolk neither seem to be with them or against them. Cooper suspects Dale of one particular act that seems to spiral the whole relationship out of control, even as Cooper is turning up facts about the previous owners and that, perhaps, they never left at all…

In sculpting his thriller here, Figgis has done something he succeeds in doing quite regularly; making the ordinary seem quite creepy. Multiple characters of the small town are slightly odd and we never truly know where their loyalties lie. Even the local sheriff is the sister of Dale’s current girlfriend, so can she even be trusted? On top of the character mysteries here there is the sprawling mansion and estate that houses some real oddities. The Tilson’s son Jessie discovers strange poems and children’s songs about the old farm. Cooper finds old erotic photographs and videotapes of the previous owners. There’s an old graveyard on the property, and so on.

This is a well-structured thriller which leaves enough confusion in its wake to make us wonder who are the red herrings and who aren’t. While the plot is a relatively simple one, there are enough of these false markers to keep us guessing to the point we usually end up guessing ‘til; ten minutes from the end.

Shot last year the picture here is quite flawless. No artefacts, even colours and saturation and natural flesh tones. If there’s any problem it’s in some more solid blacks at times and some murkier shadow detail. However, the shadow detail does fluctuate between good and average, so if some darkness is intentional, I wouldn’t be surprised. It is an ‘edge-of-your-seat thriller’ after all (and according to the sleeve) and while I wouldn’t go quite that far, it is a fairly tense film and well paced. Oh, and we have a nice cinema aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with anamorphic building plans.

There are two English tracks here, one in the surround dynamic of Dolby Digital 5.1 and the other as a stereo audio descriptive for the vision impaired. The surrounds get busy frequently here with a wide and subtle arsenal of creepy noises. The forest at night, a thunderstorm, bar noises. It’s nice overall and the audio descriptive track is interesting too. This doesn’t occur a lot on DVD unfortunately. There should be more of it as it could hardly be any harder than doing a regular re-dub and the DVD format is so perfect for this kind of thing. The hearing impaired are regularly looked after and I don’t see (no pun intended) why the visually impaired can’t be afforded the same courtesy.

Music has been scored by Mike Figgis himself and this is a throwback to the days of Hitchcockian suspense when brittle and heavy travelling piano disjointed the moments needing confusion. While it may not be to everyone’s tastes, it does do the job and lends the film a stately air reminiscent of the manor itself. Also, Figgis throws in some unusual clarinet in some tense moments that you wouldn’t think could work on paper, but sounds okay here.

A nice little compendium of stuff, but there’s not a huge variety on offer. Our first extra comes in the form of an audio commentary by Figgis himself and this is an above average one-man-band commentary. There’s plenty of backstory given out and Figgis is remarkably chatty, even giving the impression he’s talking over himself occasionally. He adds lots of hidden tips and tricks and he’s obviously very much in love with his work.

Two quick featurettes follow, the first being Cooper’s Documentary which runs for 7:11. This is a fairly flaccid piece describing a little of Figgis’ work in shooting architectural shots of New York for the sake of a doco Cooper is making in the film. The second runs for 7:58 and is entitled Rules of the Genre. It's basically Figgis telling us how to make a thriller and how to not treat your audience like idiots… except he kinda does by doing this featurette. However, it is interesting with Figgis’ Golden Rule being: The audience can’t be too far ahead of the characters.

Good advice. If only more filmmakers used it.

Next up are seven deleted scenes which come complete with an optional commentary by, you guessed it, Figgis. Then follows an alternate ending which is more like an extended ending, but it does throw the whole film into a new angle upon closure. Well worth the look and it’s the highlight of these eight scenes.

This is one of those films you need to have the time to immerse yourself in. Dim the lights, get your popcorn and go to the toilet first before switching it on because it will play better devoid of interruptions. Performances are great, and more importantly, realistic. When threatened Sharon Stone doesn’t become SuperMom, she’s shitting herself and so is Dennis Quaid. The story itself is believable too and the creepy atmosphere lends the tale the ancillary atmosphere it needs to carry it the distance. I enjoyed it and don’t have any compunction in recommending it.