good back-story, and good acting

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

Stir Of Echoes is not outright horror, not plain old thriller but rests somewhere in between, a nerve frying festival of suspense and the type of scares which send those lovely shivers down your spine. Kevin Bacon plays Tom Witzky, an ordinary dude who agrees to be hypnotized, just for funsies, by his sister in law (Illeanna Douglas). As soon as he's under, he's subjected to a terrifying and confusion vision that suggests violent torment. It turns out that he's one of the fabled 'one percent' of humans who are so succeptible to hypnotism that they unwittingly soak up other psychic energies in their vicinity. Something, or someone from the other side has found him and latched on, which is bad news for him and us, as we get to sit through several sequences that will cause you to need new pants. The initial vision is nothing outright or discernible; just images and abstract impressions that eventually serve as clues. That's what makes it so creepy though. Someone being murdered is someone being murdered, but specific, harrowing little glimpses unnerve us all the more in their fleeting nature. Reminds me of that infamous videotape from The Ring in it's style. Tom finds himself trying to solve a murder mystery, never sure whether the forces guiding him are on his side or pose a threat, always hit with a sense of dread upon turning every corner. This is the only kind of horror that actually scares me, in the true sense of the concept. Creeping, uneasy and subtle, where anything could be haunted and the scares aren't predictable. What's more, it's a smartly written, tightly paced, remarkably well made film. One of the best paranormal thrillers out there, plain and simple. There's a sequel with Rob Lowe (of all people lol), but I've avoided it thus far, it looks kind of cheap. Stick with this original fright fest, it holds up wonderfully.

I am normally not a real big fan of Kevin Bacon but I thought that in this movie he gave us his best performance so far. When I see his face I always imagine him in Footloose and I wonder when he's going to start dancing. But in Stir Of Echoes I for once didn't had that feeling. The little boy played by Zachary David Cope was also very good. Nice believable acting by this kid. The story itself was certainly interesting enough to keep you intrigued during the whole movie. I would rather call it a thriller then a horror movie. You won't get scared for one minute. Well at least I wasn't. But I certainly did enjoy this movie a lot and that's what it's all about.

Well it's not as much horror as it is a mystery.The acting was great all around, especially Kevin Bacon. The scenes of life in a Chicago working class neighborhood, and the interaction with the local neighbors and cops was all believable and interesting, kind of like "The Deer Hunter".The mystery builds and you are guessing the whole time whats going on as Kevin Bacon (as Tom Witzky) slowly appears to go crazy...The title of the movie is a clue, there are some supernatural things going in...Really fun, engrossing movie. I would recommend it to everyone.

A STIR OF ECHOES happens to be one of the better Big Screen adaptations of a Richard Matheson story, though it's FAR from being all that it should've been- THAT we'll attribute to the inability of most modern-day filmmakers to tell a coherent tale without reliance on some sort of special effects (which just tend to get in the way, anyway). Bacon does a good job in the lead, though it would indeed have been interesting to see Matheson's tale told as originally written. The overall feel of STIR OF ECHOES is not unlike that of some of the really creepy Japanese chillers that were all the rage back in the day. (Matheson was always ahead of the curve, if you ask me: his short story FROM SHADOWED PLACES, for instance, published a decade before THE EXORCIST, told the terrifying tale of a young man possessed by an evil spirit in a New York apartment. His contortions are described exactly like those we see the girl manifest in THE EXORCIST. A juju woman is called in to combat the evil, though she nearly died fighting it a decade earlier in Africa. She allows the evil spirit to enter into HER body so she can destroy it. Sound familiar? William Peter Blatty once said that he'd intended to make the Karras character a black man- the juju woman in FROM SHADOWED PLACES is black- but he changed his mind because he "didn't want to write Sydney Poitier." Coincidence? No doubt...)