Cold Creek Manor

It's rare that I have any extra time during the school year to eat or sleep, much less watch a random movie on TV.

But I was puttering around the house the other day, and I accidentally watched the 2003 thriller "Cold Creek Manor", starring Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone and Stephen Dorff.

And I have to say, it made "The Fan" look like "The Bicycle Thief". 

How can I get those 118 minutes back?

Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone play yuppie couple Cooper and Leah Tilson, who move into the old, creepy house of the title in the middle of Nowhere, USA, to get away from it all. 

The toothless yokels in town immediately despise the Tilsons, because they're rich, educated city folk and their daughter is Kristen Stewart. 

Kristen Stewart's character is also named "Kristen".  So you really get to see her stretch her acting muscles!

There's also a son character, I think...

Cold Creek Manor previously belonged to local neer-do-well Stephen Dorff, who has just been released from prison and is pissed off that his ancestral home has been sold out from under him while he was in the joint.

He shows up unannounced at the Tilson's doorstep, all sweaty and dirty, and guilts them into having him stay for dinner.  

Stephen Dorff is so dirty and crude that it's actually distracting.  You keep praying that he'll shower and floss.

During dinner, he burps loudly and makes overt goo-goo eyes at the Tilson's under-age daughter.

He also kills her horse and leaves it in the swimming pool.  Try to get the pool service to take care of that!

This behavior would be enough for any normal yuppie to send him away forever, but since this is a horror film, he's immediately given a job as their handyman.

Stephen Dorff spends most of the film spitting, scratching himself and avoiding anything resembling a shirt.

He's clearly off his rocker.  We know this because he's dating Juliette Lewis.

He wants to get the Tilsons off his former property for some reason (could it have something to do with his missing wife and children, who disappeared years ago and whose bodies were never found?  I wonder...), and he comes up with all these kooky schemes worthy of a Scooby Doo episode to scare them away, the best being depositing poisonous snakes throughout the house for the unsuspecting family to stumble upon. 

No one is bitten, unfortunately, but the ensuing scene of the Tilson family running thru their spooky abode, clutching each other, Dennis Quaid shrieking like a little girl, while snakes pop out of various nooks and crannies in their house like Whack-A-Moles is probably one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I've ever seen.

According to Wikipedia, this pile of crap not only unleashed Kristen Stewart into the world, but also ended up grossing $29,119,434. 

How...is...that...possible...?