The home is the star in a spate of recent films including a horror thriller, a "chick flick" and a gray comedy.

And why not. The home is always in a starring role. In the movies, as in life, a home is a means to an end that's both full of hope and the potential for despair.

Here's a look at Hollywood's current roles for the home and a chance to drop into someone else's home this weekend for the price of a movie and some popcorn.

Cold Creek Manor

What happens if you miss the mortgage payment on a haunted house? It gets repossessed.

The joke and the movie earn just about the same level of groans.

Simply put, the expansive shack in "Cold Creek Manor" (R) is more of a nightmare than a dream, and so, say the critics, is the movie.

The New York City Tilson family (Cooper, Dennis Quaid; Leah, Sharon Stone) pack their kids into the SUV to leave the rat race and move into a recently foreclosed upon mansion in the backroads of New York State.

Once opulent and elegant, Cold Creek Manor is now a more than 5,000 square foot money pit on 1,200 acres, but the couple pick it up for a song at a foreclosure sale. Cooper and Leah could care less the place is a shambles. They have plenty of down time to roll up their sleeves, fix it up, pump in some equity and live happily ever after.

Revealing why they shouldn't have hesitated to call in licensed, professional contractors, the former owner, an ex-con, asks for a handyman job. The couple foolishly hire him and, with the run of the house, he uses his position to make their home a living hell.

The moss-covered bricks, cobweb-draped hallways, dark doorways and dusty rooms, in more ways than one, all need work. Critics generally rated the movie "dopey," "implausible" and "haunted by cliches," giving it two-stars, tops.

The homeowners also learn that you get what you pay for.

Under The Tuscan Sun

A much more cheery "chick flick" of a movie, "Under The Tuscan Sun" (PG-13) is the story of newly-divorced San Francisco writer Frances Mayes (Diane Lane) who out-bids others for a run-down Tuscan villa during a 10-day get-away-from-it-all trip to France.

The owner, a down-on-her luck contessa requires more than a down payment to seal the deal and demands a sign from on high that Frances is the right buyer. A pigeon delivers with a splat and the gavel falls.

Throwing herself into local customs and restoring her new home, Frances' life changes with the close bonds she forms with those around her as she rediscovers the joy of simple laughter, friendship, romance and sweat equity.

A home movie with travelogue-like escapism gets decent grades from the critics who showered the flick with three stars. Apparently the location, location, location of the eye candy from rural Italy underscores the value of place and earns the movie high marks.

Duplex

Call it a "killer comedy" (the critics didn't) for it's gray to black humor, "Duplex" (PG-13) is the story of Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore), a young, vibrant New York City couple on the way up who need only a home of their own to make their self-absorbed lives complete.

Their new home is an historic, converted duplex in the perfect Brooklyn neighborhood. With lots of "built-ins" extolled by their exuberant real estate agent, the new home also comes with a feature they didn't want -- a rent-controlled tenant who isn't about to move out.

The toothless senior citizen turns out to be the tenant-from-hell with quite a bite. She runs the TV all night, volume at full blast. She insists she's too old to take out her garbage or to get to the market (where she counts every bleeping blueberry in a basket). She insists it's now Alex's job to help her with those and other tasks. He's a writer on deadline and before long can take it no more.

Risking seriously stigmatizing their property should they want to sell it later, the couple decide to hasten the tenant's expected demise and take her out in a box. What ensues is the stuff of Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. Don't play in the house, kids.

The critics were ho-hum about the flick, sparing only a couple of stars at best. Tenants, after all, do have rights.