Stir of Echoes (R)

The waning days of the summer of 1999 saw the release of several blockbuster horror films, two of which – “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Sixth Sense” popularized entirely new genres of film style; found footage and twist endings. Released right after was the David Koepp horror/thriller “Stir of Echoes.”

Based loosely on the novel “A Stir of Echoes” by Richard Matheson, the film failed to capture the box office magnitude of the previous two, though has since gathered a cult following amongst horror fans.

The movie begins with the introduction of the Witzky family; Tom (Kevin Bacon) is a blue collar worker who dearly loves his wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) though he promises at some point in time he will deliver more to her in the way of financial means. Maggie loves him back and assures him she doesn’t care about money. Tom confides in her that he didn’t expect to have such an ordinary life. The couple lives in a close-knit neighborhood of Chicago along with their five-year-old son named Jake, who unbeknownst to them possesses a secret ability that is revealed in a chilling opening scene.

Tom and Maggie attend a neighborhood party across the street with Maggie’s sister Lisa (Illeana Douglas). As the party winds down, the conversation turns to Lisa and her proclamation to be a hypnotist, with Tom lovingly mocking her. “How can a person who spent most of their adult life in college believe in hypnosis?” In a great scene, Lisa manages to put Tom in a hypnotic state, in which he wakes up crying after witnessing some traumatic images.

At home that night, Tom continues having frightening visions. In a restless state, he goes downstairs in the middle of the night, unable to quench an insufferable thirst (despite chugging orange juice dry from a carton and sticking his head under the faucet like a rabid animal.) He then encounters a ghostly girl named Samantha, a local girl that has been missing for some time, and quickly realizes she is the same apparition that has been communicating with his own son.

“Stir of Echoes” starts out with the makings of a legendary thriller, complete with the right amount of chills to keep you hanging on edge but not freeze you out of the room, but mid-way through falls flat in each and every aspect. The movie contains some great goose bump moments right from the start, in particular a haunting scene involving whispers over a baby monitor, but eventually they morph into scenes that make no sense and seem to be added just for scares – like a sinister fax coming in from Maggie’s brother that just beckons the viewer to ask, why does a middle class couple in 1999 have a fax machine in their kitchen? Then the answer is presented. It’s so Maggie’s brother can send a sinister fax.

“Stir of Echoes” also generously borrows some elements from other movies, specifically “The Sixth Sense” (though released at the same time it’s impossible to tell who stole what from whom) and the classic “The Shining” which is also indicative of the senseless scenes added for no reason. About half-way through, Maggie and Jake, while out taking a walk, stumble into a graveyard where a funeral is taking place. An ominous man named Neil (Eddie Bo Smith) follows them where he eventually introduces himself. In a complete theft of the Dick Hollorann/Danny Torrance scene from “The Shining,” Neil reveals to share the same types of powers that young Jake has. What’s worse is that Neil appears in one other scene and is never heard from again, serving literally no purpose to the story other than to frighten Maggie and her son.

“Stir of Echoes” also has an overly sensationalized ending that completely ruined it for me. In the end, it’s not a bad film, but rightfully deserves to come in last place when competing against the other horror titles from the era.

by – Matt Christopher