When two city slickers move to the country to renovate a crumbling mansion the nastiest shock you might expect would be Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen popping out of the woodwork.

But there's worse. Much worse. And it's not Carol Smillie with a sheet of MDF or Handy Andy with a fistful of decking screws.

The Tilsons (Quaid and Stone) have upped sticks with their kids to upstate New York to patch up rambling pile Cold Creek Manor.

You can tell something is up when petrol station slattern Juliette Lewis gives them a funny look when they tell her they're moving in.

Most of us would be packing out bags when jaibird and former owner Dale (Dorff) turns up unannounced...but the Tilsons give him a job cleaning the pool.

His wife and kids have done a runner and he's left to mooch around the house and grounds flexing his oil-drenched torso. Which is just what you need when your marriage is going through a rocky patch.

Things take a darker turn when he takes pleasure in describing his expertise with a sheep-slaughtering hammer...and then it's pointed out one is missing.

Director Mike Figgis thought he'd have a go at the suspense thriller but seems to struggle with the mechanics of the genre.

It's almost immediately obvious who the bad guy is so there's no whodunnit element and a photographic hint that child abuse may be involved is left unexplained.

Elsewhere, the narrative follows the tried and tested path of nutter with a dark secret on the loose but never attempts to put an original spin on events.

As predictable as an episode of Changing Rooms, the plot needs the same sort of attention that decaying fabric of Cold Creek Manor does itself.

In its favour, it does boast Christopher Plummer playing a deranged dad who accuses Dale of being "the corrupt spawn of your whoring mother". Which is nice.

Tim Evans