it’s terribly unfortunate that ” stir of echoes , ” tautly written and directed by david koepp ( who made one of 1996’s unsung treasures , ” the trigger effect ” ) , should be released little more than a month after ” the sixth sense , ” which is still going strong at the box office .
these two films are undoubtedly going to be compared ( judging from practically all of my fellow audience members last night ) , and although they have eerily similar storylines , ” stir of echoes ” is more of a straightforward psychological horror film , while ” the sixth sense ” is closer to a psychological drama .
additionally , while ” the sixth sense ” had a shocker of an ending that undoubtedly has been one of the major factors in its recent repeat business , ” stir of echoes ” is more conventional and predictable in its final twist .
and where ” the sixth sense ” was disturbing , ” stir of echoes ” is just plain scary .
i have a feeling most viewers are going to come away unimpressed because of the unavoidable similarities , and will foolishly forget to judge this film on its own respectable merits .
adapted from a novel by richard matheson that was written some forty years ago , ” stir of echoes ” opens with a cute six-year-old boy named jake ( zachary david cope ) who is taking a bath .
he is speaking directly at the screen , but we immediately have a feeling someone else is there .
finally , he asks , ” does it hurt to be dead ? ”
apparently jake sees the ghosts of dead people , but unlike ” the sixth sense , ” this young child isn’t the focus of the picture .
instead , tom witzy ( kevin bacon ) , a chicago lineman , is our protagonist .
jake is his son , and maggie ( kathryn erbe ) , whom has just discovered she is six weeks pregnant , is his hard-working wife .
one night while at a party with their closest friends , tom convinces maggie’s new-age sister , lisa ( illena douglas ) , to try and hypnotize him .
it unexpectedly works , and before long , tom is seeing things he wouldn’t normally see , including a deceased teenage girl ( jenny morrison ) in his house who happens to have been missing for the last six months .
seeking help from lisa , she tells him that , while he was under hypnosis , she told him that after he awoke , his mind will remain clear and free , like an opened door .
she didn’t expect it to work , but it did , and the only way to stop it is for tom to somehow find a way to help this girl he sees .
” stir of echoes ” isn’t a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination , but in the thick , atmospheric mood it conjures up , it is a terrifically eerie domestic horror-drama , and is not only effective on a technical level , but is impressive in its portrayal of a struggling working-class family .
kevin bacon and , especially , kathryn erbe ( 1997’s ” dream with the fishes ” ) , are top-notch and exceedingly believable as a loving married couple who nonetheless have their fair share of problems .
after tom is hypnotized and starts seeing ghastly visions , he is completely taken over by his desire to solve this mystery of the disappearing girl whom he has seen lurking in his house , and instead of maggie not being understanding , she instead believes what tom says , and aside from being a little worried by what he is going through , does not try to stop his pursuit .
bacon and erbe are not traditional hollywood stars like tom cruise and julia roberts , and therefore , are easier to relate to and always plausible as a struggling couple who have to work overtime at their jobs just to make ends meet .
in a masterfully-done , entrancing sequence , tom is hypnotized by lisa , but instead of watching him , we instead see what he sees , starting from his view as he closes his eyes into darkness .
lisa tells him to visualize being in an empty movie theater , and so , we , as audience members , are watching a movie screen from inside a theater , which is also showing a movie screen in a theater .
telling him to move closer and closer to the screen as a fuzzy word in black letters pops up on the screen , we begin to float closer and closer to the front of the theater until we see that the word is ” sleep . ”
never before have i seen a hypnotism scene as mesmerizing and brilliantly-construed as this one .
truthfully , this set-piece , and another in which tom wakes up from a nightmarish dream only to quickly discover he is reliving what he has just dreamt , are worth the full price of admission alone , just to see them on the big screen .
having loads of fun with her small role as maggie’s sister , lisa , illeana douglas ( 1995’s ” to die for , ” her last great character ) is a delight , but rarely used to her full advantage in feature films .
funny and enjoyably offbeat , douglas gets to utter the best line in the film : while talking to maggie about tom’s visions of the girl , she remarks , ” i wouldn’t be worried about him seeing another girl , although the fact that she’s dead gives one pause . ”
also of note are jenny morrison ( 1994’s ” intersection ” ) , who is truly poignant in the last half of the film when we flash back to see what really happened to her missing character , and liza weil , remarkable in 1998’s ” whatever , ” as morrison’s grieving teenage sister , debbie .
if the resolution of ” stir of echoes ” does not live up to its obviously frightful full potential ( and it doesn’t ) , what comes before is both involving and appropriately gritty .
the music score , by james newton howard , and unsettling use of whispers and ghostly sound effects , successfully compliment and foreshadow the off-kilter frame-of-mind that tom is put into , and director david koepp proves once again that he is a director with a knack for creating almost unbearably tense situations that revolve around realistically-written characters .
” stir of echoes ” isn’t as good as ” the sixth sense , ” but why should it need to be ?
both films are fully capable of standing on their own two feet , and ” stir of echoes ” really is a spinetinglingly good horror film .