Hey Folks, Harry here, and here's another fella's look at STIR OF ECHOES, a truly tremendous horror film by David Koepp. (Click here for my Review) I got off the phone with Moriarty a bit ago, and he tells me that a mute henchmen of his with no typing skills told him upon seeing THE SIXTH SENSE, another of the upcoming supernatural horror tales, he felt it was utterly fantastic. So... Maybe. Just Maybe, this year will be as strong for horror as it is for Comedy. Here's MeerStalker...
Wow!
Just came out of a sneak preview of STIR OF ECHOES. Moriarty and Longshot have already covered the plot synopsis in detail, so I will just relate my feelings.
As a devotee of the White Wolf line of dark fantasy roleplaying games, I found this movie to be an utterly good treatment of supernatural horror in an otherwise ordinary setting. What happens to Joe Sixpack when his psychic defenses are suddenly ripped away, exposing him to the cosmic mindfuck of the spirit world? Perhaps...a descent into paranoia and obsession? Oh yeah.
Bacon does an excellent job of portraying a simple man who is simultaneously terrified and fascinated by what he begins to see around him. Virtually all of the performances in this movie are deadnuts perfect, starting with Kathryn Erbe as his skeptical (but devoted) wife, Kevin Dunn as his beer buddy, and Illeana Douglas as the whiny sister-in-law. But all the best lines belong to the character's son, Jake...
While watching the effects, only at one point do you really *feel* like you're looking at an effect...but the subtlety of it gave me goosebumps.
About two-thirds of the way through the movie, a character appears to explain what the fuck is going on to the part of the audience that isn't hip to the supernatural...but Koepp and Matheson can be forgiven this clumsy mechanism. One or both of them did some serious braining for this story, and it would be wrong to send people away wondering what the hell just happened.
This movie will inevitably be compared to POLTERGEIST and THE SHINING -- each of which it bears a slight resemblance to. That's unfortunate, because the things that make this movie cool are the differences...the style, the mood, the whole atmosphere, which is so casual and ordinary, that the spookiness seems all the more jarring.
Good acting. Good directing. Good script. I don't usually go for creepy horror, but this one just rocked me.
call me
MEERSTALKER
