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10

Propensity862May 18, 2015

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Stir of Echoes is an intense atmospheric thriller with Kevin Bacon's best performance. He plays Tom Witzky, a regular guy with a wife and one underage son. He works as a lineman in Chicago, he is a day to day toiler earning his wages and supporting his family. One night at a social with his wife, her sister and his closest friend the unthinkable happens. He goes from being an ordinary man to having extraordinary visions he can't explain or comprehend. His wife's sister Lisa discusses hypnosis at the social. She describes how a person under hypnosis can't feel anything or realize what is going on because they're in another state of mind. Apparently she knows how to hypnotize someone, so Tom's best friend suggests to her that she hypnotize someone there. Tom suggests himself to her and she denies his request at first. He convinces her and then the audience sees what Tom sees as she guides him through the trance. He sees something during the trance but he doesn't know what it is. She opens a portal in his mind, and then his mind starts receiving supernatural visions. A girl is missing and she wants him to assist her in finding her body. Then she can be freed from being a ghost and rest in peace. She wants him to expose and punish the ones culpable for her demise. A man who is into some kind of witchcraft or supernatural activities tells his wife that she'll never leave him alone until he helps her with her predicament. The movie is ultra spooky and unpredictable. The mystery is tough to unravel and I'm sure most people didn't put the pieces together until the movie clarified what happened to the girl and who the culprits are. Stir of Echoes is one of my favourite horror thrillers by far. It was very underrated in 1999 and it deserved and deserves the kind of attention that The Sixth Sense garnered that year from audiences. It is a one of a kind movie that is a magnificent cinematic experience. The other movie that deals with hypnosis is Danny Boyle's Trance. However Trance isn't dark like Stir of Echoes is because it is an action thriller and not a horror thriller, Trance is great as well. These movies have similarities by sharing hypnosis plots but that is all they have in common.… Expand

34 of 34 users found this helpful340

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9

RegOzApr 4, 2012

A 9 in its genre! The producers were somehow unlucky for, as many people have already observed, this movie was released a few weeks after Sixth Sense, which was unfortunate... because people were still talking about the latter. Quite frankly,A 9 in its genre! The producers were somehow unlucky for, as many people have already observed, this movie was released a few weeks after Sixth Sense, which was unfortunate... because people were still talking about the latter. Quite frankly, I think this film is better than The Sixth Sense. It is definitely more frightening, more intense, and much more enjoyable than the other latter one...and Kevin Bacon is of course much, much better actor than Bruce Willis...Kevin is an A and Willis oh well a... B-? Anyway...my purpose is not criticising Willis, there I am going off track, but I merely wanted to share my views about the movie. In a few words: It is a classic! Eerie atmosphere, smart plot, good performances, gripping, believable...and well...you may have a situation like that just next door! ;) If you haven't watch it before, you should definitely do it. Think about this: This movie has no negative reviews, isn't that a great sign?… Expand

20 of 20 users found this helpful200

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10

ImpugnJan 12, 2020

Kevin Bacon's best performance. Forget Hollow Man, he owns this movie. The special effects & scares in this movie are top notch.

9 of 9 users found this helpful90

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10

Depose570May 16, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Bacon 'Cooks' As An Unwilling Medium...

I have always admired and marveled at Kevin Bacon's versatility as an actor. From the likable fish-out-of-water guy who trips the light-fantastic through a piece of fluff like FOOTLOOSE, to putting everything on the line to play a pedophile in the unnerving THE WOODSMAN, there's hardly anything he can't - or won't do - to show his amazing range.

That being said, STIR OF ECHOES still holds what is for me one of his all-time Top Five performances.

He plays Tom Witzky, a regular mug living with his family in a working-class suburb of Chicago. Though he loves his family, hotter-than-hot wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) and precocious son Jake (Zachary David Cope), he's also a man becoming bored with his life. He wants to do and be something more than who and what he is.

Obviously, the old adage "be careful what you wish for" went right over Tom's head.

At a party for family and friends, Tom volunteers to be hypnotized by his flaky sister-in-law, Lisa (the always excellent Illeana Douglas), who makes a powerful suggestion to Tom that his mind takes literally. What happens next will change his life and everyone's around him forever.

A 'doorway' has been opened inside Tom's head that allows him to communicate with the dead, and for them to reach out and touch him...whether he wants to or not. When the "nightmares" that he's been having begin to intensify, Tom knows he must find a way to close that doorway for good before he loses his family...and his sanity. The urgency is heightened when he discovers how sensitive he was before the hypnotic suggestion, in the most chilling way possible...it seems that son Jake can see and talk to the dead as well.

In the tradition of THE CHANGELING, LADY IN WHITE and THE SIXTH SENSE, the focus of Tom's visions comes from one apparition in particular, who won't leave him or his family in peace until he can figure out what it wants and why. The situation provides fodder for one intense and terrifying performance, and with help from a strong supporting cast, Bacon comes through like a champ.

When movies like this are adapted from older works by classic authors, I usually proceed with the greatest caution. But Richard Matheson's creepy novel has been skillfully transformed by David Koepp, a man who knows a little bit about balancing thoughtful plotting and dialogue with outright terror, (as in APARTMENT ZERO) and the outstanding job he does here will make you think twice the next time somebody wants to 'put you out' at a party with something more than just shots of Captain Morgan...… Expand

3 of 3 users found this helpful30

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9

Catenary44Jun 7, 2021

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9

Aerialist277Jun 19, 2021

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2 of 2 users found this helpful20

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9

Pluto744Jun 20, 2021

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2 of 2 users found this helpful20

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10

Castor600May 12, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. In the hypnotism flashback scene, there is a scene of a safety pin being stuck through Tom's hand. This was not a special effect - a stunt man was paid to come in and have a safety pin pushed through his hand for the scene.… Expand