moongoddess-30185 The Cottage was a really scary movie.There were some good actors, and the film had a cool look and style. Morissa O'Mara is one to watch. Great if you are into scary fix. The film played with the fear of a stranger getting. into your life and people start disappearing. Kinda scary. The dysfunctional family was a good jumping off point.It had a psychological thriller vibe that drew you in. Could be a cult classic? Worth a watch. David Arquette was super scary in this movie. This movie was a mix of of horror and psychological thriller with an arty edge.. I want to watch again, because I missed some things . I would recommend this move to people who like scary movies with style.

jimmysmithx2 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.

burl-1 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.

steel_indigo This is definitely not the worst movie I have ever seen but not the best either of this genre. My take on this movie was that Rose met a man on the internet and they became lovers. She told him about her family and her Mother's death and how she felt about what had happened with his Dad remarrying so soon after her Mother's death and they had a baby. The man she got involved with was a charismatic psychopath very like Charles Manson. At least, that is who I thought of while watching this movie.It appeared he picked girls who had a lot of anger toward their families and helped them reek vengeance on them and anyone else associated that was felt had done harm to this person. It was like he had formed his own cult of wives who held undying allegiance to him. They would do his every bidding and over time he added to his group of wives. He would abduct family members and others associated to the person to perform a killing ritual at the end of a marriage ceremony. It seemed like some sort of bonding issue to leave the past behind and rid the person of any attachments and take revenge for whatever ills they felt had been perpetrated on them.Therefore after a fight with her family, some of them getting away and some of the girls being killed and David Arquette's character getting badly hurt, you don't know if they really get away or not. The girls, one in particular you never suspected is telling her that Arquette has been hurt worse and will survive and how much he is devoted. They are cajoling Rose to stay with them. They are a family group in their minds. Here you find out his following is well more than three or four but a huge number. It leaves you wondering if they get caught and if the three you see of Rose's family and think survived did indeed survive.This movie really gave me the creeps and with the way they did the soundtrack did cause me to jump a few times even though I knew what was going to happen. The acting was fine and the suspense was there. It reminded me of Hitchcock movies. The antagonist's (Arquette) spaced out way of interacting with the characters is extremely disconcerting. If you like movies that are sheer tension this is a good movie for wondering what he is actually trying to accomplish even with many clues. You knew he was homicidal but not exactly why. He did it for the object of his affection at the time. He seemed to have chosen those that had gone through family trauma and turned out broken.