Stir of Echoes

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Under the Radar

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Here's another entry into the long list of late 90s/early 2000s ghost movies that fell under the radar. I find that if I bring it up in conversation, not many people are familiar with it. This is one I tend to find a little more interesting than most in its overall execution, though. The fact of the matter is that this is much more of a mystery than a movie featuring a terrifying spirit. Yes, there's a haunting situation in this, but it's less about the scares and more about unravelling the secrets of a neighborhood.

A phone lineman named Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon) lives in Chicago with his newly pregnant wife, Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) and son, Jake (Zachary David Cope). It's evident from the get-go that Jake has the uncanny ability to communicate with the dead. Instead of being freaked out by it, like in 'Sixth Sense', things run almost a little too smoothly for this kid. Jake reacts more like he's talking to an imaginary friend than a spirit. Anyway, Tom finds him talking to an unseen person while in his bath, but doesn't think much of it and goes about his evening, attending a neighboring party with Maggie while keeping a monitor on hand in order to keep check on Jake. It is here at this party that Tom challenges Maggie's sister, Lisa (Illeana Douglas) to hypnotize him.

The hypnosis is a complete success, but Lisa manages to implant the idea that Tom's mind will now be an open door to what he can't comprehend. Soon, Tom begins to experience hallucinations that refer to a girl named Samantha Kozac (Jennifer Morrison), who has been missing for six months. As one strange experience occurs after another, and Tom seemingly begins to lose his grip on reality, he stumbles down a rabbit hole having to do with a missing girl he had never heard of before - at least not until his son started talking to her. As he quite literally digs for answers, he manages to uncover certain truths about Samantha that are downright disturbing, and even hard to watch.

This is another one of those films I meet pretty much in the middle. On one hand, I can't help but admire the idea that hypnosis gone wrong is what leads Tom down this crazy path of seeing ghosts, and as the mystery unravels, it does carry a certain intensity with it. I'm also a fan of the ghost being very much in the background, much like in 'What Lies Beneath'. That said, in both cases, the film is much more about figuring out what happened to the dead rather than the more popular spookhouse movies of this day and age. I could definitely see an audience trying these movies out and not being fans simply because not a lot really happens. Just the odd, mild scare here and there.

The similarities between this and 'What Lies Beneath' are actually many. They both involve delving into the cause of a mysterious death, both involve the idea of a spouse losing their minds, both essentially ghost movies, both even involve sex in the storyline in some uncomfortable way. The fact that these and many others came out around the same time like them sort of explains why some of these have been swept under the rug a little. You could Google a list of ghost movies, but if you look in the range of around '97-'02, there seem to be quite a few familiar but forgotten titles. This is just one of those titles, and it's pretty decent. But once again, one might get much more of a thrill with something a little more fresh.

3/5

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