Stir of Echoes (Special Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Illeana Douglas, Kathryn Erbe, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Dunn, Zachary David CopeBrand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Product features:
- DVD Details: Actors: Kevin Bacon, Zachary David Cope, Kathryn Erbe, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Dunn
- Directors: David Koepp
- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC. Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1; Number of discs: 1; Studio: Lions Gate
- DVD Release Date: August 17, 2004; Run Time: 82 minutes
Movie Reviews of Stir of Echoes (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Finding that "open door"
Summary: 5 Stars
Samuel Taylor Coleridge once described it as a "willing suspension of disbelief." If you read a book or see a movie that stretches the boundaries of reality, or so you believe, but the art compels you to enter into its dimension and you do so, you have willingly suspended your disbelief.
Are there ghosts? If so, can they visit their needs upon us? Can they grab our attention and demand justice? Is it possible for hypnosis to "open doors to the impossible?" Director David Koepp and his convincing cast make the viewer want to suspend disbelief and join them in this 94-minute excursion into the world beyond death.
As usual, Kevin Bacon, one of our best actors, delivers a convincing performance as Tom, the ultimate skeptic. His apology to Maggie for his ordinariness seems out of place at the time, but it foreshadows the unlikely event to follow: his dip into otherworldliness. Another seemingly incongruous scene places Jake (Zachary David Cope) and Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) at a cemetery, where Jake, by seeming happenstance, meets Neil, another open-door traveler into the other world. It is Neil's explanation that helps Maggie grasp the intensity of Tom's visions, but not understand them.
A spare economy of scenes makes each one pertinent to plot development, a sort of one-thing-leads-to-another-to-another-and so on. Maggie's visit to Neil causes her to put a knife in her purse. Her grandmother dies, removing Jake from his bed of feathers. Jake reminds his mother to take her purse, which, of course, puts the knife at hand for the ending. None of this is spoiler material. If you read this beforehand, it will mean nothing except a clicking into place as you view. Afterward, you will say, Aha!
Crime will out, especially when the echoes of the dead, once living, find an "open door" to stir through and demand help. Once satisfied, the dead can move on to wherever they go, calmly and peacefully. The door, however, remains ajar. And those voices, those echoes of the dead, know where those doors are.
Summary of Stir of Echoes (Special Edition)
STIR OF ECHOES - DVD MovieThe only real problem with Stir of Echoes has nothing to do with the movie itself, but with unlucky coincidence. Adapted from a Richard Matheson novel, this film arrived around the same time as The Sixth Sense, and surface similarities made it suffer by cursory comparison and the competing film's phenomenal success. It's a pity, because this one features one of Kevin Bacon's best performances, in a psychological thriller that makes a lot more right moves than wrong ones. Bacon plays a blue-collar guy who laments his ordinary life, only to learn, when his sister-in-law (Ileanna Douglas) hypnotizes him, that he is a "receiver" capable of seeing spirits and split-second glimpses of past and future events. It's a torturous gift to have--especially since his friendly Chicago neighborhood possesses a dark secret--and Bacon plays the role with an appropriate mixture of obsession and internalized torment.
Similarity to The Sixth Sense applies only to the basic premise and the character of Bacon's young son. Otherwise, this is more of a hard-edged journey of self-discovery, marital crisis, and recovery, with Bacon's wife (played by the highly underrated Kathryn Erbe) involved in an underdeveloped subplot about a group of people who share Bacon's gift as paranormal "receivers." Furthering his career as a writer-director of intelligent thrillers, David Koepp makes a few missteps in pacing and thematic overkill, but overall Stir of Echoes is a sharp, sensitive thriller that unfolds to reveal a dramatically satisfying solution to its mystery. --Jeff Shannon
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