Stir of Echoes

Tom Witzky, a phone lineman in Chicago, is hypnotised by his sister-in-law at a party. Afterwards images of a missing girl start arriving, and it turns out his son Jake can speak with the dead as well. The trail leads to the basement of his own house. David Koepp wrote and directed, from Richard Matheson's 1958 novel. Koepp bought the book in a second-hand shop; he admired Matheson's Twilight Zone work and Duel. Producer Gavin Polone secured the rights. Matheson approved the script and said Koepp had a very good touch. The budget was 12 million dollars and the shoot ran 39 days in Chicago across October and November 1998. Brian De Palma visited the set and suggested a long take during a dialogue scene. The hypnosis sequence was shot as written in the novel, in a theatre in Joliet, Illinois. It opened on 10 September 1999 and took 23.1 million domestically against heavy competition: The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project and The Mummy were all in the same season. Roger Ebert wrote that Kevin Bacon gives one of his best performances. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 70 percent, CinemaScore at B. Who it is for: viewers who like ghost stories built from atmosphere rather than spectacle. Who it is not for: anyone intending to measure it against The Sixth Sense. This is smaller, dirtier, and its turn is not as clean.