Quaid, Stone's latest leaves viewers up a creek - no paddle required

Mike Figgis is a director who's not afraid to test the experimental waters in the world of film. His work ranges from the powerfully moving and Oscar nominated Leaving Las Vegas to the more avant-garde Timecode. Critically acclaimed with the awards to back it, the title Cold Creek Manor and the credit "directed by Mike Figgis" present something of an anomaly. \nCold Creek Manor is a wretchedly-made film, not just going over the top but right through the frigging atmosphere, full of stock characters and cliches as tired and worn as your great-grandmother's feet. Cold Creek Manor would be the musical equivalent of Radiohead releasing an album of American Idol proportions. It's so bad, you have to begin to wonder if the whole thing isn't just a joke on all of us.\nStructurally and narratively, Cold Creek Manor functions as a fable or fairy tale. The Tilsons, a sophisticated and urbanite family living in New York City, decide to move into the country after their son is nearly run over. Purchasing Cold Creek Manor and moving into the "forest," it's not long before the Big Bad Wolf shows up in the form of Stephen Dorff. Dorff plays Dale Massie, the ex-convict/former owner of Cold Creek. While Dorff does a fairly excellent job of being slithering creepy, his character is such a transparent plot device that a neon sign blinking "TOOL" would not have made it any more obvious.\nThe most pleasurable way to view Cold Creek Manor is thematically. For the Tilsons, gender roles have been allowed their urban liberties. Cooper Tilson (Dennis Quaid) is a documentary filmmaker with motherly and even feminine characteristics -- working from home, getting the kids ready for school and the such. Leah Tilson (Sharon Stone) is a highly-paid corporate climber who's just been offered the vice-president spot. \nMassie represents primitive man, raw and uninhibited, excessive in his nature and a threat to everything the Tilsons believe in. Of course, nothing might be this serious and from the sound of Figgis's own score, an absurdly clambering piano-pounding indicator for suspense, he could very realistically be laughing at the big burly threat the Scary Country Boy poses to the Naive Yuppie. In the end, Figgis leaves you questioning where the real threat was coming from, but its not enough to save Cold Creek Manor from completely sinking.