The Cottage (2012)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Yesterday, i found this film on TV and wasn't in the mood to play one on the DVD, so i told myself "give this one a chance, even it wasn't well known". Now usually i'm from the kind of people that can stand bad films, even if it's bad i watch it till the end, even if it was in the cinema, but this film was exception.From the beginning there was something wrong, they put David Arquette as the main villain, i mean who could believe that ! . David is one of those actors who can only play the funny Innocent guys he was totally wrong for the part. Another thing was the camera angel and the style of shooting which was very bad and not scary at all because everything was predictable , and there were times the style of shooting was so silly and boring like a 5 year old child tries to make his first film.i was really surprised to see Bellamy Young here, she is one of the stars of scandal and she did a small part in this terrible film!!!Anyway i tried very hard to keep watching it, and when i couldn't i put the mute mode just to make it easier for me to watch, but it really didn't help me at all because after five minutes i changed it for a cartoon channel just to take a deep breath and feel the life again!!!

The movie seemed to never really develop enough for it to be credible. I think that the potential was there, but it, unfortunately didn't happen. The house and cottage was a beautiful location and the family seemed to be like a real everyday family. I didn't really like the movie too much, but did give it a chance all the way through. It's not horrible, just too slow for me. I also wasn't expecting a lot, but did hope that it would be more dark.Lorraine Nicholson (Jack Nicholson's daughter) appears just briefly in the movie and the first time is at the beginning to allegedly set it up for the new guy (Arquette) to move in when talking about the hit and run. I guess this was all part of an existing plan by Rose to help Arquette's character get close, but was that really even necessary? Why did he have to move into the cottage to achieve his goal of ending up with Rose as part of his clan? The entire goals seems that it could have been accomplished at his compound where he already had others, even if his goal was to kill a family (similar to Charles Manson). Perhaps the production had access to that fantastic house with the cottage and just tried to write the story around that.I never saw Rose with any motive to be willing to kill her family. If there was brainwashing, I would have liked to have seen more. The dad seemed to care about her, her step mom seemed to have beef with the other sister. Rose was just kind of there and along for the ride. She has a personal sister rivalry, but nothing that most family members don't go through anyway. The movie was a bit slow early on and really didn't seem to move any faster until the kidnapping of the friend. I would have liked to have seen more of the captures though and not just a cut to them in a sack in the back of the truck.I thought the overall acting was OK. Arquette played his normal quirky character type, just more dark. The tattoos seen during the pool scene helped this. The girls playing the daughters were OK as well. The one playing Rose had a nice demeanor for the part, but overall, there was nothing too spectacular from the overall acting arc. Most seemed to play the parts pretty safe and somewhat flat. They weren't bad, but I would have liked to have seem more emotion from everyone involved, especially during the climactic ending.

Questions I had to ask while watching:1. With such good actors here, why is the script this horribly unbelievable? 2. If this guy creeps them out this much, why didn't they make at least ONE police report. 3. Would you please STOP LEAVING THE BABY ALONE IN RANDOM PLACES? I was almost rooting for Arquette's character to win in the end,because someone really need to call child services on the mother. 4. What on earth did they do to Rose? I mean, no normal girl shacks up with some guy who lives in the backyard unless he gives her drugs or her family has already put her through some traumatic sh*t.5. After the twist ending: What on earth is this guy's penis made out of. Gold? Heroin? Pixie dust? Seriously, how can a minimally attractive guy with a serious problem of being socially creepy get that many pretty young girls to buy into his B.S.

So disappointed in this movie. Scripting is bad, story line doesn't match up. Acting is poor camera angles not interesting. They should made a documentary instead. Looks like amateur movie that went wrong. With the caliber of known actors involved, it's very disappointing . I recommend a remake. Write a proper script Use effects and create illusion . Even if your lighting is poor, still , use effects to patch up.I think the movie has potential to become something good. Just rewrite the script .Good things about the movie Good location Few good actors