The Cottage

Family rents "cottage" -- actually a two bedroom, two bath home, fully furnished, with swimming pool, modern appliances and lovely hard wood floors -- to romance writer who has a red pick up truck but no typewriter. He tells the lady from whom he rents the names of his three most recent novels...so, for the rest of the film (somewhere between 80 minutes and 5 torturous days, depending upon perception) I wait for the lady to look up his books on line for some major "reveal." If YOU had a successful author renting from you, wouldn't you look up his books on line? Nope. Okay, David is excellent as the "renter" who is up to plenty of no good but the plot holes are big enough for his pickup truck, and the behavior of the family is the face of suspicion and terror is absurd and senseless. Apparently not only did the writer/renter not have a typewriter or word processor, neither did the screenwriter. Only worth watching for villain's performance.

The characters weren't particularly likable, and the plot was vague and left room for plenty of assumption. Honestly, it really just didn't pull me in. I spent half the movie wondering where the baby was and why she was left alone, and I couldn't help but feel like the characters reacted poorly to situations most people would handle with a bit of common sense. The suspense was notable but was overpowered by irritation with the character's stupidity. The movie should have definitely been longer and with a bit of explanation, perhaps a bit of back-story to each of the main characters. At the beginning of the film you're like "Why is this happening?!" and you're still asking yourself the same questions along with some new ones by the end. Definitely would have been unhappy if I'd have paid to rent this ... but since it was on Netflix ... eh. Worth watching I guess.

(2012) The Cottage SUSPENSE THRILLER/ PSYCHOLOGICAL

Again, we're accustomed to seeing so much of these kind of movies, that it's becoming to be so tiring. I even get sleepy attempting to submit a proper review on here. Anyways, there's a small scene at the beginning where a young teenage girl is getting married before she kills her mom and dad who're tied onto a chair. The movie then jumps to a suburban city focusing on a family of a step mom who's expecting, and at the same time looking after two teenage daughters who're not biologically hers. One of the daughters is resentful because her dad has already found someone who isn't her actual mom, but is really a school teacher she used to have. Viewers are completely oblivious about all the family's problems except to say that it's dysfunctional. The actual story doesn't start as soon as Robert (David Arquette) wanted to rent the so-called "cottage" located at the back yard, since the previous tenant had got into an accident. Now, viewers only heard about the accident, but are also kept in the dark about it's events as well, at least until much later. As viewers are finding out more about Robert- the psychopath, the movie becomes more shallow and convoluted.

I must have written that summary a good 50 times attempting to keep a straight face before (somewhat) succeeding.. But even looking past the... inventive casting, this movie about a romance novelist who might not be who he seems, is a hopelessly muddled mess. Poor direction, abysmal writing, nonsensical characters. No character really has any rhyme nor reason to do anything that they do in the film. The movie feels horribly disjointed like they wanted to make a Lifetime-esque thriller but even failed at those 'lofty' goals. It's also one of the tamest movies of the 'bad tenant' sub-genre that I had the misfortune of subjecting my eyes to.

Actually, I know it's never easy to make a movie. But sometimes you see one and you think, how on earth did this actually get funded, get as far as production, with a script that might have been drafted on a few cocktail napkins? Really, you're going to pour so much money and effort into something that has barely been written? Was it so so easy to say "Sure, this script is ready! Let's roll!" when there are plenty of people involved whose professional instincts should have been screaming "Hit the brakes NOW!!!"

This slapdash assembly of genre elements has too many ideas for one thriller, though none of them are necessarily good, and none of them are developed at all. That includes the dysfunctional family dynamics (so poorly done I wasn't fully sure just how everyone was related to each other), the villain's backstory (there is none--how, and how long, has been getting away with this stuff?), the ridiculous cult-leader-of-sexy-young-women thing, and so forth.

This i one of those movies in which the entire plot falls apart anytime you ask a question like "Didn't they think to ask for references before letting him rent their home?," let alone "Why didn't they call the police?" (you'll ask that one about ten times). It's just sheer carelessness that perhaps could be excused/explained if the film went into production without a finished script (or into the editing room after a budget shortfall caused filming to stop before the whole script had been shot...these things happen). Either that, or the filmmakers simply had no idea their script was Swiss--as in cheese, with lots of holes.

Of course a lot of people are going to find the very idea of David Arquette as a scary bad guy inherently ridiculous. He's adequate here, actually, and could have been pretty good in a better movie. But the other performances are fair to middling, no surprise since they're given so little to work with in terms of scripted character definition.

What worst about this movie, though--even beyond all the above, not to mention the weak non- ending--is its vacuously glossy look, which is more appropriate for a Lifetime or Hallmark movie than a horror thriller. It's like a lifestyle ad for a new upscale suburban development in Utah, the homes are so boringly tasteful and new-looking. Needless to say, this tends to undercut any potential for suspenseful atmosphere--and unlike something like "The Stepfather," "The Cottage" doesn't even think of using that environment subversively, to give the horror elements a more perverse edge.