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"Quite
a 'Stir'"
by Scott Mantz
"Stir of Echoes"
Kevin Bacon, Illeana Douglas
Directed by David Koepp
Stressed-out
Hollywood studio heads routinely put films on the fast track when
they find out that a similar project is in the works at a competing
studio. In the last few years alone, we've had competing volcano
movies ("Dante's Peak", Volcano"), asteroid flicks ("Deep Impact",
"Armageddon"), and even Steve Prefontane biopics ("Prefontane",
"Without Limits"). If that wasn't bad enough, Warner Bros. and Disney
are both racing to the red planet to see who will get there first
("Mission to Mars", "Red Planet"). Sometimes though, it simply boils
down to coincidence. "Stir of Echoes" is bound to be unjustly compared
to the eerily similar, and ultimately superior, "The Sixth Sense",
but it still has a few tricks up its sleeve to come off as a creepy
horror flick.
Blue-collar
phone technician Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon) doesn't know a good thing
when he's got it. Even with a beautiful wife (Kathryn Erbe) and
a young son (Zachary David Cope), he still chooses to feel sorry
for himself for having never realized his dream of being a rock
star. When he drinks himself into oblivion at a neighbor's keg party,
he agrees to undergo hypnosis by his new-age sister-in-law (Illeana
Douglas). Something goes horribly wrong, and over the next few days
he becomes haunted by violent images that he cannot make sense of.
He descends deeper into insanity, and his obsessed behavior threatens
to tear apart his family.
In his adaptation
of the 1958 novel by Richard Matheson, director David Koepp goes
through great lengths to keep his horror film separate from the
rest. He successfully infuses wit and surprise into his directing
style, but his script suffers in the process. Thanks to amateurish
dialogue, "Echoes" is a good film that could have been great, but
what did you expect from the scribe who penned such high concept
commercial fodder like "Jurassic Park" and "Batman and Robin"?
If nothing else,
Kevin Bacon's intense performance alone makes the film worthwhile.
He's an honorable guy who, like the rest of us, can't help but wonder
what his life would have been like had things been different. That
connection allows Bacon to take the audience along for the ride
during his descent into insanity. In a scene that surely must have
been inspired by Richard Dreyfuss and the "Devil's-Tower-in-a-living-room"
scene from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", he tears up his
floors and destroys his yard with maniacal obsession, oblivious
to his neighbors' scrutiny and his wife's frustration.
Illeana Douglas
adds some light humor as Bacon's spiritual sister-in-law, and Kathryn
Erbe puts in a supportive turn as Bacon's wife. Zachary David Cope
is haunting as the creepy kid who can see dead people (boy, that
sounds familiar!), but his important role is unfortunately left
underdeveloped.
As we saw with
the astounding success of "The Blair Witch Project" and "The Sixth
Sense", people still have a fascination with the supernatural. As
long as Hollywood delivers good films that taps into our fears,
we will continue to flock to multiplexes to see them. Don't let
"Stir of Echoes" similarity to "The Sixth Sense" scare you. There's
alot going on here that will echo in your thoughts deep into the
night. Boo!
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