Stir of Echoes (1999)

Mmmmm, yay that this post gives me an excuse to put up a shirtless picture of Kevin Bacon at age 40 (wouldn't want to do it so much now) Anyway, I'm surprised I've never seen Stir of Echoes, especially since it was much more mainstream and popular than most of the junk I watch.

Anyway, I digress. Stir of Echoes is about this little middle class family living in Chicago. Tom and Jane live with their son Jake in a nice little house in a quiet neighborhood. One night, they leave five-year old Jake home alone (attention CPS!) and go down the street for a party. As the party winds down, Jane's sister Illeana starts talking about how she can hypnotize people. There's a lot of "bullshit" calls going around until Tom agrees to be hypnotized.

Unfortunately, the results were not what he hoped for. He ended up sobbing and talking about his childhood, and generally embarassing himself. He goes home to find out that he's "seeing things" and soon discovers that his son "sees things" as well. Let me just pause here to say that I have one serious horror movie fear and that is creepy children. Seriously, Pet Semetary is not even that scary of a movie, but it kills me because of that creepy psychotic little shit from Full House! Anyway, no one warned me there was a creepy kid in this movie. Little Jake talks to dead people sixth-sense style, but apparently he likes it.

He particularly talks to one girl, Samantha, who Tom begins to spot as well. Meanwhile, Tom is seriously beginnning to lose his shit. He's not going to work, and he sits on the couch all day waiting to be visited by this Samantha chick. And Jane is convinced he's "cheating" with a ghost. (Common sense, honey) Tom returns to Illeana to be hypnotized again, hoping to get rid of the visions he's having. Unfortunately the reverse procedure tells him to dig, and dig he does. They are certainly never going to get a reference from their landlord because he tears that shit UP.

I won't give the end away (it's only kinda surprising anyway) but things all come together and set the stage for a Stir of Echoes 2, which aired on TV in 2007 with an entirely different cast. (Guess one dead chick and creepy-ass kid was enough for Kevin Bacon) This movie was alright, but it definitely could have been scarier.

Grade: C- (Mischa Barton in The Sixth Sense: scary for a little while, but then kinda meh)