Stir of Echoes

The Stir of Echoes web site commands us to "Unlock the secret, cross the threshold, open your mind," and "Discover the power." Let's add to that list "Hold someone's hand," because "This movie is damn scary."

Kevin Bacon plays Tom, a telephone linesman, which means, among other things, that he and his brethren are responsible for the incurable static issues on my Durham phone line. It also means that Tom is bored with his life of beer and block parties (and ravenous sex with his beautiful wife, but who's counting?) and is searching desperately for that "big thing" to happen to him.

That "big thing" happens one night after Tom and his wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) put their seven-year-old Jake (Zachary David Cope) to bed and head across the street to one of those aforementioned block parties. Maggie's sister Lisa (Illeana Douglas), encouraged by the drunken masses, hypnotizes Tom, and the partygoers witness the usual hypnosis goings-on: Tom rambles about some bully who used to beat him up in elementary school and so on.

We see things from Tom's perspective, however, and fifth-grade bullies are the least of his problem. Bright red and blue flashes and cymbal crashes illuminate what can only be a dark secret that Tom will chase for the rest of the film. The hypnosis has opened a sort of portal (don't worry, not as in Sphere or Stargate) to the truth. Jake lives with this "sixth sense" permanently and, together with his mom Maggie, witnesses his father delve into the depths of monomaniacal hysteria. Tom cannot stop digging until the secret is unlocked, until the ghosts that lie underneath the bedrock of this seemingly "nice" suburban community are laid to rest.

And oh, it's scary, almost too scary at times. Director David Koepp tosses us a horror movie, but instead of that ridiculous skinny guy in the hockey mask, we turn around and jump to see an innocent, pale young girl lurking behind us. And the result is all the more terrifying.

-By Chetan Rao