A STIR OF ECHOES (1999)

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Thursday, June 07, 2001

Writer-director David Koepp, working from Richard Matheson's novel A STIR OF ECHOES (the title taken from a line by Shakespeare), crafted a screenplay that diverges from its source but retains the essential premise and set-up, resulting in a believably realistic world where the sudden intrusion of the supernatural carries that much more of a sense of the uncanny. (This is what Stephen King was talking about when he called Matheson one of his biggest influences--horror set not in far off Transylvania but in your own neighborhood.)

After the competent but uninspired THE TRIGGER EFFECT, Koepp took a great step forward as a director with this effort. (As a screenwriter, of course, he has several blockbusters under his belt, including JURASSIC PARK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.) Aided by solid performances (including Kevin Bacon proving his worth as a character actor rather than a leading man) and augmented with a judicious use of special effects that are actually creepy rather than just technically impressive, he managed to generate some genuine scares in the course of telling an interesting story peopled with engaging characters.

The parallel with SIXTH SENSE is definitely there, but it's ultimately minor: a young boy does not 'see dead people' but rather only a single dead person, and this creepy communication from beyond the grave is soon pushed aside by the new-found psychic ability of his father, who takes over the rest of the story. The film actually has a much more diverse set of influences, which it weaves together into an effective piece of horror. Had it been released in the spring (it was finished and ready to go) instead of in the fall (after not only SIXTH SENSE but also THE HAUNTING and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), it might have been seen as the first sign of a resurgence in pure horror, a reverse in the trend toward the hybridization that gave us romantic-horror (BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA), comedy-horror (SCREAM), and adventure-horror (THE MUMMY).


This is not to say that STIR is lacking in the dramatic department. Its horror is 'pure' only in the sense that it requires no grafting of other genre elements to sell the film to the audience. In a nutshell, Kevin Bacon's working class Tom Witzky awakens from a hypnosis session at a party with his mind 'opened,' and comes to realize that his young son's imaginary playmate is all too real--a troubled spirit unable to rest. The increasingly disturbing ghostly visions compel Tom to seek out the source of the haunting, while his obsession with the mystery threatens to destroy his marriage. Underlying the apparently supernatural coercion is the sense that Tom feels his life has amounted to very little, and now for the first time he's doing something important. You almost think he'd be doing this even if the ghost weren't forcing his hand.

The ever increasing intrusion of the supernatural is expertly handled, with a few early hints leading up to the first full revelation, which is guaranteed to send you leaping out of your armchair in shock. With the comfort barrier torn down, Koepp is thenceforward able to play off your anticipation of yet another big shock, teasing with shadows and unexpected arrivals but never delivering in quite the same way--because he doesn't need to. Instead, he opts for a growing sense of dread as the horrible truth behind the haunting comes to light.

Along the way, some narrative threads are left untied: a pregnancy is introduced and then forgotten, as is Tom's psychic ability, which is clearly terminated in the novel (by a glancing shot to the head) but apparently remains active, although unacknowledged, at the end of the movie. Also, the story morphs into a somewhat more conventional thriller as the focus shifts from the ghost to her murderers. Whereas Matheson was content to stick to a single killer, Koepp drags in a neighborhood conspiracy meant to seem like something ripped from a contemporary headline; it's not bad stuff, but it undermines the eerie effectiveness of the rest of the film. And the conclusions relies on a bit of a cinematic cheat: a presumably dead character returns to save the day, but if he wasn't dead, you have to wonder why he took so long to come to the rescue. But these flaws aside, the strengths of the film are considerable.