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New Century of Cinema
DOWSE Guide to the
Movies
by Tony Lee editor of
Pigasus
Press
Stir Of Echoes
Director: David Koepp
99 minutes (18)
review by Simon Woodward
Based on Richard Matheson's 1958 eponymous novel, Stir Of
Echoes, stars Kevin Bacon as Tom Witzky, a working class guy living in a
tight-knit Chicago suburb. After a drunken hypnosis session with his sister-in-law
Lisa (Illena Douglas), he finds his powers of perception altered. Jigsaw flashes of a
violent event plague his waking mind. The ghost of a missing neighbourhood girl
appears to him. The visions infect him. He realises his son, Jake (Zachary David
Cope), can also see the girl, but his gift is more focused. Soon, Tom's life crumbles
into obsession and finally, as dreams and premonitions overlap, suicide and
recriminations blight the neighbourhood, he begins to dig physically and
metaphorically for the secret haunting the house.
Much has been made of this film's similarity to The Sixth Sense, but
here you are safe from slick twist endings and Bruce Willis' permanent
man-with-wind grimace acting. Bacon's Tom Witzky is a excellently modulated
performance - from the loving family man suffering the pains of fading ambitions to
the obsessive who terrifies himself as much as those around him. He is backed up by
the excellent and ever-edgy Illena Douglas and a cast of understated character
performances. Shot in lovely muted tones, with the special effects being all the more
powerful for their brevity, Stir Of Echoes may not be the most original film
ever, but it feels real and adult and involving.
Read the original novel, Stir Of Echoes by Richard Matheson, Boxtree
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