STIR OF ECHOES
US, 1999, 95 minutes, Colour.
Kevin Bacon, Katherine Erbe, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Dunn.
Directed by David Koepp.
Stir of Echoes is an eerie drama. It was released early in 1999, the year of The Sixth Sense, which it resembles in many ways. It did not have the commercial success of The Sixth Sense although it is a well-made thriller and explores its themes quite effectively.
What begins like an ordinary domestic drama, has indications of something different when a little boy seems to be talking to an invisible playmate who is actually dead. When a sceptical Kevin Bacon is hypnotised by his sister-in-law, Illeana Douglas, she suggests that doors be opened in his narrow mind. What happens is that his capacity for psychic knowledge is opened up considerably and he shares the experience of his son. He sees a dead girl. The rest of the film is his searching to find out who the girl is, finding the message to dig, digging up his garden and his cellar until he finds the dead girl - with some devastating melodramatic results for him and his family, as well as the neighbours.
Kevin Bacon is effective in this kind of film and Illeana Douglas has a good role as his sister-in-law. The film raises themes of psychic knowledge, ghosts, communication with the dead.
1. The popularity of this kind of psychic thriller? Comparisons with The Sixth Sense and an adult and a child with psychic knowledge and seeing the dead?
2. The Boston suburban settings, the home, the street, the railway station? The confined place of action? The dream sequences, the hypnosis sequence in the theatre, the seats, the walls, the floating chair? The musical score?
3. The title, its evocation of memories for Tom? His schooldays? His openness to the presence of Melissa?
4. The plausibility of the plot: the capacity for people to be hypnotised, the statistic of eight percent going into deep hypnosis? The theory of people who were open to an Other World? The boy? Tom? Maggie unable to see into the world? The African American and his being at the funeral, the police, the invitation to the boy to come? Maggie's going to the house, his explanations?
5. An ordinary family, Tom resenting his ordinariness, his promises to Maggie when they married? Disgruntled, at home, learning of the pregnancy through Lisa? His relationship with his son? At work, his commonplace life? The party, his scepticism, daring Lisa to hypnotise him? The effect, the theatre, the memory of the past, the broken nail? His waking up, the safety pin? Wanting to go home? The hypnosis and its effect on his way of doing things, lying around the house, brooding? Seeing the dead girl watching the television? Trying to communicate with his son, shouting at him? Maggie and her not understanding, desperation? His not going to work, his brooding in the night, downstairs? His dream about Frank going to kill him and Adam's death? His finding Adam's body? His wanting Lisa to change her hypnosis? His going, the theatre, the message to dig? His fanatical digging in the yard, Maggie's reaction, his son helping him? His knowing about the grandmother's death before the phone went, his not going to the funeral? His digging in the cellar? His discovering the body? The confrontation with Frank, the truth and his seeing the rape, the killing? Harry and his son? The threats? The possibility of the shooting - Maggie and the car, tooting the horn? Her coming into the house? The deaths? Frank and his saving Tom?
6. Maggie, pregnancy, relationship with her sister, loving Tom, her son? Her bewilderment by what was going on, the hypnosis, the seeing of the ghosts? The funeral and her going to see the policeman? Her grandmother's death? The final confrontation and reconciliation? The character of the boy, his powers, talking, the babysitter, his being preoccupied, the voice? The knowledge, the ending?
7. The babysitter, Maggie and her hiring her, the suggestion of her son? Taking the boy, at the railway station, the police, her mother? The story of the girl? Tom and his asking his neighbours about her, his preoccupation?
8. Lisa, her sarcasm towards Tom, love for her sister and brother-in-law, the hypnosis, trying to help him regain his sanity?
9. The credibility of this kind of story, its eerie nature, the popularity of a contemporary ghost story?
