I first saw Stir of Echoes on the bigscreen when it was released in ’99, and, at that time, I remember thinking it was one of the scariest movies I’d ever seen. It’s still a scary enough movie, I suppose, but what I didn’t realize then was how flawed the film is.
Stir of Echoes tells the story of Tom (Kevin Bacon), who is hypnotized one night after a party and, while he’s under, sees some sketchy images that frighten the hell out of him. Immediately following his hypnotization, Tom begins having visions of someone being murdered, and he even sees the girl’s ghost sitting on the couch beside him. It becomes clear pretty quick that there’s a mystery that Tom is meant to solve.
It’s a decent plot, right? But then you factor in all the unnecessary fluff.
In the beginning, Tom’s wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) announces that she is pregnant…and then it’s not mentioned for the rest of the film. It’s like there was some sub-plot planned that never materialized. Then there is the issue with Tom and Maggie’s son Jake (Zachary David Cope). Jake, without being hypnotized, repeatedly talks to the ghost in their house throughout the entire movie, to the complete ignorance of his parents who–this is another oddity–have parties to attend every single night and always have some friend on the phone who distracts them from their child chatting it up with a spook. And if the young boy who sees ghosts seems cliché, how about this: there is also a completely-irrelevant-to-the-plot black man who has “the touch” too, and he notices Jake’s gift and wants to help the family. Yeah, it’s a complete rip-off of The Shining.
Stir of Echoes has its moments. Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Erbe both give excellent performances, and Kevin Dunn as well. But I’ll no longer have the reverence for it that I once held. It’s a run-of-the-mill ghost story with a twist. For my money, The Sixth Sense is better in almost every way.
See Stir of Echoes on Amazon or Tubi.