Stir of Echoes (1999) Review

"Does it hurt to be dead?"

-Jake Witzky

Blue-collar, no-nonsense Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon) gets drunk at a party and dares his superstitious sister-in-law, Lisa (Illeana Douglas), to hypnotize him because he doesn't believe anything will happen.  Tom is wrong and starts seeing violent and disturbing visions involving his house, his family, and people in hie neighborhood.  Tom starts to become more and more disturbed and obsessed with figuring out the truth behind his visions.  His wife, Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) wants to dismiss the visions, but can't because their son, Jake (Zachary David Cope), is having them as well.  As the family starts to fall apart, Tom comes closer and closer to discovering the awful truth hidden in their seemingly wholesome neighborhood.

What Works:

This movie is 100% carried by Kevin Bacon.  He gives one hell of a performance as he goes more and more nutty.  He absolutely sells it in every scene.  I am a huge Kevin Bacon fans and this is a strong performance even by his standards.  He is easily the best part of the movie and a lot of fun.

I really enjoy the reactions each member of the Witzky family has to some of the scares.  Both Tom and Jake have a few funny quips that I wouldn't expect from a movie like this.  Normally, we just have people getting scared and screaming when encountering something spooky, but Tom and Jake, for the most part, give odd, but entertaining line deliveries.  I also enjoyed the scares involving Maggie because she can't see any of them.  There are several moments throughout the movie that could have been obnoxious jump scares, but Maggie can't react to the spooks, only the audience can.  If we're going to have scares like this, this is how I'd like them to be done; subtle on screen, but still able to get a reaction from the audience.

The revelation behind the visions is really well handled and a much more tragic story than I was expecting.  It was a great way to put all of the earlier pieces of the story together and a solid 3rd act to the film.

Finally, this movie is set in Chicago and boy can you tell.  Those accents were a bit much, but at least everybody was consistent.  It made for an enjoyable setting and it's nice to see us Minnesotans aren't the only ones with ridiculous accents.

What Sucks:

I have two problems with Stir of Echoes and they go hand-in-hand.  First is the character of Neil, (Eddie Bo Smith Jr.), who just kinda shows up halfway through to explain the plot.  He's in a grand total of three scenes and comes out of nowhere.  He serves no purpose other than to lazily give us some exposition.  This could have been much more skillfully handled than a random character like this.

Secondly, after Maggie meets Neil and has everything explained to her, Maggie's behavior doesn't really seem to change with this new information.  She knows what is happening to Tom and Jake, but she just keeps going about her business getting irritated at the rest of her family's odd behavior.  Her irritation was fine earlier in the film and made sense.  But now Neil has explained the plot of the film to her.  She should be trying to help Tom and Jake somehow.  A little bit later, she has moment where she sees Tom's ability in action and manages to change her attitude towards her husband.  This leads me to believe that the scenes with Neil were probably added in reshoots.  I'm guessing that studio executives or maybe recruited audience members were a little confused about exactly what was happening so they were forced to add these scenes of exposition.  It makes sense as they are completely unnecessary and don't really jive with the rest of the film, but this is purely speculation.

Verdict:

Stir of Echoes has a few problems with unnecessary exposition and odd character motivation in the second act, but the film has some interesting scares, a compelling story, and a fantastic performance from Kevin Bacon.  I can't believe this film isn't talked about more often.  I know it was overshadowed by The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project, but still.  Regardless, Stir of Echoes has got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good