Cold Creek Manor
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: September 19, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
15
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A lightweight popcorn movie, hardly the scariest of the year but with enough jolts to be satisfying. Writer Richard Jefferies' solid script emphasizes character and psychology over plot and provides Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone with engaging, multidimensional starring roles. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The movie ultimately belongs to Mr. Dorff, whose villain is as frightening as any human reptile to have slithered onto the screen in quite some time. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The film is a disquieting and often very funny examination of yuppie unease in the country. The problem is, it's disguised as a dopey suspense thriller. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
Perhaps Figgis proves his unconventionality with Cold Creek Manor after all, creating a thriller without resorting to the genre's usual bag of tricks. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The journey, however, is a hollow one, since Quaid and Stone, for all their efforts, never really do seem married. Perhaps that's because Stone, with her dry-ice charisma, does everything that an actress should except connect to whomever she happens to be facing on screen. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Figgis brings strong visual imagination to the first hour, but he can't rescue Richard Jefferies's screenplay from plot holes bigger than the manor itself. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A woefully predictable imperiled-yuppie-family-under-siege suspenser that hardly seems worth the attention of its relatively high-profile participants. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Feels very nicely made, at least until it falls apart: By its midpoint, you start to recognize that it has acute creepy-thrilleritis, which means that it promises us some things at the beginning that it has no intention of actually following up on. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Will leave audiences yawning rather than gasping from fear. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The jolts are mild and too easily anticipated. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
As haunted-house thrillers go, Cold Creek Manor is more ludicrous than the average but at the same time more handsomely produced. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
The first hour is evocative and creepy...But once the trajectory is clear and the squeamish New York intellectual Quaid has to stand up and fight for his homestead, the boringness seeps into you like the damp. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Most of the publicity for Cold Creek Manor seems to imply that it's an occult thriller, specifically a Stephen King-ish haunted house movie. But no. This is a severe case of mistaken identity: In fact, there's not a supernatural bone in the movie's body. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Cobbled together from other sources without much thought to originality. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
In one of the most laughable confrontations between humanity and nature since Elisha Cuthbert stared down the cougar on "24," Quaid's family runs amok in the house, as each member simultaneously discovers a carefully placed snake meant to scare them off the property, almost as if the snakes were working off a timer system. The film never recovers. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
All of which would be fine if Figgis managed to work up any real suspense, but the film slogs towards its inevitable mano-a-mano showdown like something up to its knees in mud. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
It takes forever to get moving, but when it finally does, the Quaid and Stone characters still seem ill defined. Read full review
40
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Figgis has spent too many years crafting thoughtful, innovative films to have much of a knack for storytelling this mechanical and many are the moments when he does indeed seem to have been asleep behind the wheel. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Cold Creek Manor's prime reason for being seems to be a set piece involving poisonous snakes, directed by Figgis with a drunken gusto the rest of the film could use, and as a comeback vehicle for Stone, who tries hard at motherly warmth, but can't quite wash the Catherine Tramell out of her hair. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
[Figgis] has made a thriller that thrills us only if we abandon all common sense. Of course preposterous things happen in all thrillers, but there must be at least a gesture in the direction of plausibility, or we lose patience. Read full review
38
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Richard Jeffries' script tosses together bits of plot borrowed from such "bad things happen when you leave the city" classics as "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" without any awareness of how or why genre conventions work. Read full review
38
PremiereLaine Ewen
Clunky and riddled with clichés from start to finish, which is a shame because the cast is able and is led by Oscar-nominated director Mike Figgis. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The most disturbing aspect of Cold Creek Manor -- a predictable, disjointed "Cape Fear" knockoff -- is that a script this disjointed and unoriginal could actually get the Hollywood green light. Read full review
30
Washington PostReilly Capps
This movie isn't a thriller, it's an insomnia killer. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
About as thrilling as cleaning out your garage. Read full review
30
Village VoiceEd Park
CCM's dissipated endgame borrows soggily from "The Ring," resulting in something that wouldn't make it past the first script meeting for Scary Movie 4. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's sad to see risk-taking director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Hotel) do a generic thriller for a paycheck and then not even screw with the rules. Read full review
20
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Deafeningly dull movie. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A gothic thriller called Cold Creek Manor extrudes an 80-minute idea -- I may be overgenerous here -- into 118 minutes that feel like an eternity.
20
Film ThreatKevin Carr
Figgis is clueless on how to make a thriller. He falls into all the traps of a first-time suspense director, and he can't help but focus on all the depressing faults of the shockingly dull characters. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
It's discouraging to witness a filmmaker who clearly yearns for the indie world yield to the temptations of mindless movie manufacturing. At least Figgis made it as soulless as possible. Read full review
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