La gorge du diable

I've seen way flakier movies that were smash hits. Most Hollywood thrillers & action movies have to be viewed with a willing suspension of disbelief anyhow. People do things they'd never do in real life. They ask stupid questions & accept answers that no one with a high school education and an IQ in even low triple digits would accept in real life. They walk away from falls, car crashes and burning buildings that would kill real human beings. They *split up* to look for the ghost/axe murder/evil demon! So, what's wrong with this one? I got involved. I got tense. I was on the edge of my seat.

I liked it.

The tension was built up without any reference to gory scenes, just creepy camera angles, shadows, the wind blowing curtains, the increasing feeling that Something Really Bad was just around the corner.

You get to see Sharon Stone looking almost like an ordinary human being. Dennis Quaid is his usual edgy self. Stephen Dorff does a great slide into madness.

If I'd believed everything I read about it, I never would've picked up the DVD. It's not Hitchcock, but it's definitely worth watching. Check it out.

The director and producer of documentaries Cooper Tilson (Dennis Quaid) and his wife, the executive Leah Tilson (Sharon Stone) have a stressed life with their two children in New York. After a minor accident with their son Jesse (Ryan Wilson), they decide to move to the country. They find a huge old house with furniture and a large field for a bargain and decide to buy it. They make a garage sale to get rid of the possessions of the former owner, and a couple of days later, Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff) visits them, introducing himself as the previous owner, who lost the house for the bank after being sent to the prison for three years for accidentally killing a man. He asks for a job in the repair team, and Cooper accepts to hire him. The life of the Tilson family changes after the arrival of Dale, and deep secrets about the former family are disclosed.

"Cold Creek Manor" is a Mike Figgis' thriller, having names such as Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Julliete Lewis and Stephen Dorff in the credits; therefore I expected a great movie. Most of the time, I kept saying to myself: "-Surprise me, surprise me". Indeed this film surprised me, in a bad sense: it is nothing but a standard and bureaucratic thriller, full of clichés and incredible situations. For example, who would hire a weird man, former owner of a property and that has just left the jail? Or when Cooper is threatened, why he stays alone in the isolated house, with doors and windows completely open? Or when Leah and Tilson are threatened, why do they look for refugee in the house, climbing to the higher floors, after seeing their car on fire? This movie is a typical commercial product, broadcast on Saturday night by the largest Brazilian open network: shallow, predictable and full of stars. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Garganta do Diabo" ("Devil's Throat")

I didn't read any reviews prior to watching this film or I wouldn't have wasted my time. It is one of those good idea movies (maybe too many ideas at the same time) that just didn't take me where I expected or wanted it to go. I expect a "thriller" to build to a crescendo with possibly a disturbingly logical or a emotionally shocking ending. After 119 minutes I was left feeling disappointed and confused. Although there are lots of deleted scenes-it still moves too slowly. An unfortunate choice for Dennis Quaid-he tries very hard to keep the movie going-but it is dead in the water like Jaws 3-D. Some of the horror scenes are comical. Some of the scenes are truly frightening. Some are just plain redundant. I'm still not sure you aren't supposed to expect ghosts around the corner.

Generally speaking I will buy the DVD of any movie starring Juliette Lewis, so I finally caught up with "Cold Creek Manor" when I found it on DVD. I expected it to be pretty bad because of what I've read about it. But it's not so bad a film. I stayed with it anyway. Juliette, as usual, is wasted in a thankless part. It's a shame these days that genuinely fine actors do these trailer trash kind of roles, mostly because big stars and lesser actors won't do them. If Juliette was around in the old days she would have had the roles they gave Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland or Joan Crawford. Today she does roles like this (not to mention her career nadir in an episode of the mind-numbingly awful "My Name is Earl"). Dennis Quaid, Shane Stone and the young actors playing their children are very good. I really liked this family. I suppose the lack of suspense is due to the fact that there was little conflict between them other than the usual family gripes. There was an undeveloped plot point where Stone admits to considering an affair. This could have been interesting. Brad Pittish Stephen Dorff's character was underdeveloped. The gradual revelation of his past was not suspenseful enough to be effective and this is something of a fatal flaw. I am glad Mike Figgis scrapped the alternate ending that was included in the DVD's special features. But I think the pool scene might have worked, though it would have made the film unnecessarily longer. "Cold Creek Manor" reminded me "Straw Dogs" and pales in comparison. But on its own merits, it's nowhere near as bad as the comments on this website indicate. Worth a look.

Cold Creek Manor

Here's yet another film that I believe suffered from some poor advertising. Or, at the very least, some misguided advertising. As I recall when it was released, there was a strong vibe to those ads that indicated some sort of haunted house or ghost story or something. So it came up on Encore, I remembered those ads and wanted to see what kind of haunted house story I was going to get. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone? Sounds alright. I'm not generally a big fan of haunted house pictures, but I figured I'd give it a look. At least it's rated R, right?

Well, well, well... So. So where are the ghosts and sh*t? Turns out this is not the ghost story I thought it was... A big, rich family from "the big city" (I think it was Boston or New York--of course--everyone's from either those cities or LA these days) gets fed up with the hustle and bustle and insanity of living in the city and decide to move out to the middle of nowhere. They stumble upon a glorious old house in glorious old decay--Cold Creek Manor. The house is owned by a bank ready to off-load it for whatever they can get for it. Apparently, they could get around 200 grand for it. Sh*t, this house is huge! The property goes on forever! There are houses in the Twin Cities here that are 1/6th as big as the house in this film that cost more than that! Anyway, eventually, the last surviving, capable, member of the family that once lived there turns up, fresh from prison, and a little annoyed that his house is all gone. So he starts terrorizing the family all slowly and methodically and weirdly... Or does this family just have some really rotten luck...? Well, at any rate, Dennis Quaid thinks the guy is out to get them and goes mildly berserk trying to prove it. He's a documentary filmmaker, and it doesn't help matters that he's doing his current documentary on the family that lived in that big ol' mansion before he and his family moved in.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--The acting is generally pretty good (one scene I'll point out later is the exception)

--Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone after all. She's done well to prove she's more than just a remarkable specimen of femininity--she's also an actress, after all.

--Impressive sets--that house is beautiful--from the decaying look of it's years of neglect to it's remarkable half-restoration--it's a great lookin' place to live.

--Fairly interesting story.

--Pretty good chemistry between Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid, they're characters (the married couple) endure arguments and crumbling marriage with hints of adultery.

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The atmosphere was pretty mild. Nothing special, and nothing doing a really intriguing job of building tension.

--The usual plot-point that one part of the mystery can only be solved by a chance discovery by the children is, of course, present here too.

--Average Cinematography.

--Some very mild blood/gore scenes. Mostly, with just some blood--and a skeleton or two. Nothing major. Looked good, but wasn't anything special.

--Only mild violence. Fight scenes, mostly.

--Very mild nudity, and one sex scene--through window blinds no less. The nudity is pretty much relegated to pictures--photographs--of the wife of the last member of Cold Creek's original family.

The Bad:

--Sharon Stone kept her clothes on. Okay, I'm kidding. She did, but that didn't hurt the film in any way.

--The music varies from average, to simply obnoxious. We get scenes that contain mild drama, but have a piano pounded on with a feverish, near lunatic intensity. Here's an example: Car driving down stretch of road, someone's worried about an argument--overcast with DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNN-DUNNNNN!!!! as loud as the howling of hell beasts in hell.

--One exceptionally poor scene where the family is apparently threatened by generally harmless American mountain snakes. The snakes slowly slither to and fro through the house and everybody freaks out with enough overacting to match any Keanu Reeves scene. It just wasn't scary. Not at all. Maybe, if there were tons and tons of snakes--like in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" it would've been mildly scary. But whole family is running away from a terrifying torrent of roughly 6 snakes. The scene, very simply, wasn't believable. I almost laughed at it--it was that stupid.

--Some clichés and cheesiness pop up occasionally. No real surprises.

The Ugly:

--Occasionally feels like a "Deliverance"-style "big city folks out 'n their element" movie--but not as good as "Deliverance" (which is a classic).

Memorable Scene:

--Dennis Quaid punches Sharon Stone in the face. Oopsy!

Acting: 7/10 (except for that one scene) Story: 6/10 Atmosphere: 5/10 Cinematography: 5/10 Character Development: 7/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10 (not much to note) Nudity/Sexuality: 2/10 (quantity) Violence/Gore: 6/10 Sets/Backgrounds: 8/10 Dialogue: 7/10 Music: 3/10 Writing: 6/10 Direction: 6/10

Cheesiness: 3/10 Crappiness: 0/10

Overall: 5/10

I'm giving it a 5 because the film suffers from a few too many problems. It's probably good for fans of horror/thrillers to take a look at, but is likely too mild for hardcore horror fanatics to care about. Better, maybe, for the average movie-goer looking for a light thriller to spend an evening with.

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