![]() As Tom digs deeper into who the girl is, he discovers his son Jake (Zachary David Cope) is also psychic. When his wife’s psychic sister Lisa (Illeana Douglas) hypnotizes him and leaves a post-hynoptic suggestion to “open his mind,” Tom awakens with horrific visions of a young woman beckoning him to help her. Tom Witzky ( Kevin Bacon) is a family man with a beautiful wife and young son. In rereading my notes I had a lot of exclamation and question marks and I started yelling aloud to the television. The only way I could recommend this is if you did gathered a bunch of friends together and just bashed it. Stir of Echoes falls right before The Box but WELL below anything resembling a good movie. Out of the films/books I’ve read there’s the good ( Legend of Hell House which I reviewed awhile back), the decent ( What Dreams May Come is a worthy effort), the “great movie but it’s not at all the book” ( I Am Legend), and the utter shit ( The Box). I have the Matheson book, and several other Matheson novels, and from what I’ve seen Hollywood just doesn’t know how to adapt the man’s work. There's a lot to appreciate here.Today’s film is the 1999 Stir of Echoes, a loose (and boy is that meaning applied here with a paintbrush) adaptation of the Richard Matheson book of the same name. If Stir Of Echoes had been released at another time, it definitely would have more fans. While there could have been a sequel, as it would be cool to follow Jake's journey, the conclusion does feel right. ![]() While Tom and Maggie decide to move away, which is a great idea since this neighborhood has bad, creepy vibes, Jake can hear the static and sounds of the supernatural, suggesting that he will continue to see and hear strange things even when the family is in a new location. Stir Of Echoes joins horror movies with endings that aren't spelled out. The movies also each have a famous actress playing a young adult character: Jennifer Morrison does a good job as Samantha in Stir Of Echoes and Mischa Barton famously played Kyra, a young girl whose mother poisoned her in The Sixth Sense. While Cole and Jake aren't scary horror movie kids, they do make quite the impression. Both films also have child characters, as Haley Joel Osment became famous for portraying the role of Cole Sear. They're also tied to the spirit world and can see and hear things that others can't. Both movies feature main characters who feel a duty to solve a mystery and help people. ![]() Stir Of Echoes is an underrated 1990s horror film and also shares some things in common with The Sixth Sense. It's a nice, quiet block where bad things aren't supposed to happen. I liked the way Chicago looked, and I felt like I hadn't seen a ghost story set in that kind of setting before." This works well as Tom, Maggie, and the other families on the street just want a good, honest life and they are traumatized by the horror that took place in the neighborhood. ![]() I grew up in Wisconsin, and my mother is from the South Side of Chicago. Koepp explained, "I liked the working-class setting, so I tried to think of another city with older architecture and some working-class neighborhoods that I was personally familiar with. Club, director David Koepp shared that while the book that Stir Of Echoes is adapted from is in California, Koepp thought that a Chicago setting would be better for the movie. It's a horrible story that the movie doesn't dwell on for too long. Tom learns that Kurt and Adam, two boys from the neighborhood, attempted to assault Samantha and then murdered her. Tom wants to help find out what happened, and when he ends up finding Samantha's body in the walls of a house in the neighborhood, he realizes that his instincts have been right all along. The movie takes a compassionate approach to the missing girl trope. Tom's visions are fascinating and show that he can access another world besides this one. The story is definitely there: after Lisa, Maggie's sister (Illeana Douglas), hypnotizes Tom, Tom realizes that he can see Samantha Kozac (Jennifer Morrison), a teenage girl from the area who went missing. If The Sixth Sense and Stir Of Echoes hadn't hit theaters around the same time, it's easy to imagine that Stir Of Echoes would have made a bigger impression among horror fans.
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