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63
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47
27 Dresses
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
39
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81
Bamako
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
47
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68
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69
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64
Cloverfield
30
Cover
68
Delirious
92
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43
Final Season, The
41
First Sunday
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
65
Great Debaters, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
52
Hollywood Dreams
7
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60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
81
Juno
70
Lars and the Real Girl
47
Lions for Lambs
41
Mad Money
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
xx
Moondance Alexander
53
Music Within
77
Nanking
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
24
One Missed Call
74
Orphanage, The
30
Over Her Dead Body
39
P.S. I Love You
37
P2
46
Reservation Road
55
Resurrecting the Champ
57
Romulus, My Father
85
Savages, The
78
Starting Out in the Evening
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
57
Teeth
92
There Will Be Blood
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
32
Untraceable
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
68
War Dance
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
43
Youth Without Youth
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
92
There Will Be Blood
85
Savages, The
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
81
Juno
81
Bamako
78
Starting Out in the Evening
77
Nanking
74
Orphanage, The
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
70
Lars and the Real Girl
69
Charlie Wilson's War
68
Business of Being Born, The
68
Delirious
68
War Dance
65
Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
46
Reservation Road
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
43
Youth Without Youth
43
Final Season, The
41
Mad Money
41
First Sunday
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
39
P.S. I Love You
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
37
P2
32
Untraceable
30
Over Her Dead Body
30
Cover
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
24
One Missed Call
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
xx
Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Stir of Echoes
Thriller
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for violence, sexuality and language
Starring
Kevin Bacon,
Illeana Douglas,
Kathryn Erbe,
Zachary David Cope,
Kevin Dunn,
and
Conor O'Farrell
After being hypnotized by his sister-in-law (Douglas) at a party, Chicago telephone lineman Tom Witzkey (Bacon) begins to see haunting visions of a murdered girl's ghost and struggles with his sanity when he realizes that he now has the power to see spirits.
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
David Koepp
Richard Matheson (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
David Koepp
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: February 1, 2000
Video: February 1, 2000
Theatrical: December 10, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
99 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
99 |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
Stir of Echoes is much more down and dirty (than "The Sixth Sense"), and the thrills are more visceral.

90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
There's visceral horror, too, including a grisly image -- a horror-in-miniature involving a fingernail -- that located an open nerve in my jaded ability to endure screen violence.

80
Dallas Observer
M. V. Moorhead
The scares early on are potent and get Stir of Echoes off to a chilly horror-movie start.

80
Los Angeles Times
John Anderson
What gives the movie its teeth is the very earthy Witzky family, who behave so much like real people you might think they are.

80
Film.com
Tom Keogh
It certainly has a place among the year's more accomplished productions.

80
Variety
Joe Leydon
Koepp does a masterful job of grounding his intimations of the supernatural in a totally persuasive down-to-earth context.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
The effectively creepy Stir of Echoes, is enough to make your blood chill.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
"Sixth" achieves a rare hushed poetry where Stir, for all its strengths, is more earthbound and familiar.

75
USA Today
Andy Seiler
The economical, fast-paced style and creepy mood are reminiscent of "The Twilight Zone."

75
New York Post
Rod Dreher
Studded with potent fright scenes and built on a rock-solid performance by the ever-dependable Kevin Bacon.

75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A horror movie with a Hitchcockian veneer of the everyday, a story that taps into our fear not only of the paranormal but also of insanity and the secret evil that may lie beneath ordinary lives.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Kevin Bacon stars in one of his best performances.

70
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
The conventional ghost-appeasement scenario isn't very suspenseful, which may be part of the reason it's so gripping.

70
Film.com
Robert Horton
The picture has an appropriately grungy sense of place.

70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
A scary, intelligent thriller that remains haunting long after it's over...features what has to be one of the creepiest first half-hours in recent film history.

70
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
The ghost story is not half as satisfying as the lovely indie mood piece tucked inside it about a community tending to itself in the wake of a recent wound.

68
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
Elevates the horror genre with a refreshing intelligence and humor -- too bad it's not half as good at generating scares.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
(Bacon's) most believable, heart-wrenching and charismatic lead performance in many years.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Marvelous not in its evocation of horror but in the way it slowly chips away at the mundanities of day-to-day urban living.

63
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Needs less down-to-earth flavor and more unearthly force.

63
Miami Herald
Phoebe Flowers
A scream-out-loud movie, upsetting and deliriously effective. Problem is, Koepp relies almost entirely on the isolated shocking images, ignoring the human element at the center.
63
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Little internal logic and too many signposts. It's easy to see who in the neighborhood knows more than they're letting on, even without X-ray vision or ESP.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
A conventionally violent, do-or-die ending on such an unconventional movie.

60
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
Another thriller that packs a spooky wallop as it conjures an unseen world within reach.

60
Newsweek
David Ansen
The movie tries too hard. Too bad. This coulda been a contender.

60
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Compared with ("The Sixth Sense"), there's no contest. Stir of Echoes has been outrun and outclassed.
58
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Offers tricky fragmentation without mystery or mood; it's a mosaic of fear that grows less and less unsettling as it comes together.

50
Baltimore Sun
Ann Hornaday
Some dazzling in-camera special effects, especially the ingenious idea of filming the story's ghost at a slow speed, six frames per second, giving the being a strange, otherworldly way of moving.

50
TNT RoughCut
Christopher Brandon
All that suspense falls dead at its climax, which proves to be a bore. The absence of a surprise ending and the lackluster spooks make this one worth skipping. I'm going back to see "The Sixth Sense."
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Director Koepp relies more heavily on editing tricks than old-fashioned atmosphere.


The average user rating for this movie is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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