A real-estate tip for movie homebuyers: If a property has a scary name, don't make an offer unless the realtor offers a phenomenal price break. Following that advice might have steered Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone away from the eponymous stately home of Cold Creek Manor, and away from a lot of trouble that has nothing to do with rotting foundations. Sick of New York City, Stone and documentary filmmaker Quaid decide to pack it in for life upstate, little suspecting that the countryside holds dangers of its own. Disregarding cryptic illustrated diaries written in a childish scrawl and walls adorned with massive hammers, they set up housekeeping, even cheerily hiring the down-on-his-luck former owner (oft-shirtless ex-con Stephen Dorff) to do some work around the place. Though he steers the scenario in the obvious direction, director Mike Figgis takes admirable care with the setup. Quaid's plans to film a documentary on the history of the house lets the exposition flow gracefully, and Figgis brings an eerie stateliness to the mounting tension. Then he brings in the snakes. 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. It might have worked had Figgis found a way to let the arty intensity of his smaller projects breathe life into the exhausted The Hand That Rocks The Cradle-style thriller. Instead, he relies on the not-too-scary Dorff and his trailer-dwelling girlfriend Juliette Lewis to turn the screws. They don't. Neither does the director's own overwrought thumpa-thumpa score, or a supporting turn from Christopher Plummer, who makes profane threats while chomping chocolate-covered cherries. That touch stops just short of literal scenery-chewing. It's nice to see Figgis hasn't abandoned all restraint.