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The Cottage (2012 )

How Do You Botch This Up?

A romance novelist (David Arquette) moves into a "cottage" behind the home of a composer and his family. He seems sweet, but what do they really know about him?

I have no idea how this was botched, but it was. You have a pretty decent story of a man living in a guest house and the family is slowly getting creeped out by him. That seems easy enough to build suspense for, find good actors and more. But somehow, no, it just does not happen. And I do not want to blame the actors, because they were fine. I want to blame the person who wrote the script (Nick Antosca). So much of what Arquette's character does makes no sense whatsoever. He could achieve his goals in ways that are less absurd.

The cinematographer, Zoltan Honti, needs to be singled out. Maybe his work is sometimes good -- he has done a number of films -- but it just is not worth a darn here. He does not frame things well, the camera is jostled all over when it should be steady. it is a mess. I recently watched "Last Exorcism" and do not recall it being so bad. For what it is worth, though, "Zoltan" is a pretty awesome name.

Lastly, I have to take issue with the box. First, it says the film is "based on a harrowing true story". I hate it when films claim that, especially when it is so blatantly false. The events in this movie did not happen. And second, it says the family does not know about "depraved secrets of his past" (referring to Arquette). That is just misleading -- his past is never the issue, and I do not know what secrets he has. What matters is the present, which may or may not be "depraved".

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