GENRE: Supernatural Thriller (Not Horror, It's Not Necessarily Scary as Much as Eerie)
PREMISE: Tom, a lineman, is married with a young boy. He hangs out with old time pals in Chicago. At a party, he gets hypnotized and goes into a trance. That night, he sees violent scenes and a young woman's ghost. Tom's son is also quasi psychic. Only the boy is calm and collected, while Tom is agitated by his new skills. As Tom learns of the ghost's story, he begins a hunt to find her body that places his whole family in harm's way.
ABOUT: This is one of the first films directed by David Koepp. It was a pretty straight forward adaptation from the Matheson novel. Besides that I've scoured Variety but can't really find a trace or mention about the development process of this script. Also, I read that Andrew Kevin Walker did some uncredited doctoring on this script, and in lieu of formal recognition is given a special thanks in the credits.
WRITERS: David Koepp (Panic Room, Spiderman, Mission Impossible, and Jurassic Park)adapted the script from a novel by the Grand Daddy of Good Horror, Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, Somewhere in Time)
Stir of Echoes is another one of those films of which I only ever caught the tail end. There's a scene where a ghoul is discovered in Tom's basement. It's definitely chilling. And the effects are awe inspiring. But, that being said, when I actually had the time to experience the whole story, I was left with a lackluster experience. Now before any of you start trying to convince me otherwise "But Joe it's one of the best undiscovered horror films of the late 90's".
Let me tell you why. The reason is two fold. A) I don't like the main character. He's not funny. He has no aspirations. He has no real drive. He's content being a hick. And, while that may be plenty cool for some folks, and normally I enjoy working class heroes, but this guy is cardboard. He has no inner personality. As such I imagine Kevin Bacon was a pretty good choice for that type of a role, but I really can't get invested in a character like that. Furthermore B) The plot is goofy. It's either cliche at times and I've seen it over and over before: the man must discover the dead woman's secret (Isn't that the premise of that George C. Scott film The Haunting?) or the plot is surpentine and convoluted. Then there's the fact that Tom's son is clairvoyante and that's both cliched and convoluted. I know Matheson was the driving force behind this thing. And, that Stephen King in turn probably ripped off Matheson in The Shining. But, I can't help but feel that Stir of Echoes is a little tired that way. And, Matheson is always a very tone driven author so if you don't get his character tone right, it's understandable how you could end up with relatively flat character personalities. So I guess without the creepy tone or special effects, the story is pretty flat, which was also problematic in Manhattan Ghost Story. In tales about ghosts, the story is always heavily dependant on atmosphere. And in bland script format, it's nearly impossible to pick up on this stuff. So I'll give Stir of Echoes the praise that I'm sure when translated to celluloid the experience is a much more enjoyable one.
Scooby Doo (Complete Crap)
[X] - Atilla (Poor, Few Redeeming Qualities)
Wedding Crashers (Mediocre)
Hot Rod (Good)
Definitely Maybe (Pretty Darn Good)
What I Learned: Horror is a fine combination of plot and tone. And tone on the page, unlike in prose, can be very hard to capture particularly when one is working in as refined a structure as horror. So it's a losing race alot of the time in terms of capturing a script reader when you're writing a tone heavy horror picture. Stir of Echoes, Manhattan Ghost Story.
Isla Prospect: The only real female role is as the ghost (or Tom's wife, a pretty bland role). And Isla would be an interesting choice as a spirit, but it'd probably creep me out about her forever.
Script Link: All over the net
Coming up later this week, we'll have a big budget romance film from the 90's, a sci fi ghost tale, followed up by a surprise. It's gonna be a blast.
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