Stir of Echoes

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

Stir of Echoes is much more down and dirty (than "The Sixth Sense"), and the thrills are more visceral.

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.

Dallas Observer M. V. Moorhead

The scares early on are potent and get Stir of Echoes off to a chilly horror-movie start.

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.

Film.com Tom Keogh

It certainly has a place among the year's more accomplished productions.

Variety Joe Leydon

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

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The effectively creepy Stir of Echoes, is enough to make your blood chill.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

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

USA Today Andy Seiler

The economical, fast-paced style and creepy mood are reminiscent of "The Twilight Zone."

New York Post Rod Dreher

Studded with potent fright scenes and built on a rock-solid performance by the ever-dependable Kevin Bacon.

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Kevin Bacon stars in one of his best performances.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

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

Film.com Robert Horton

The picture has an appropriately grungy sense of place.

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.

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.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

(Bacon's) most believable, heart-wrenching and charismatic lead performance in many years.

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.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Needs less down-to-earth flavor and more unearthly force.

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.

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A conventionally violent, do-or-die ending on such an unconventional movie.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Another thriller that packs a spooky wallop as it conjures an unseen world within reach.

Newsweek David Ansen

The movie tries too hard. Too bad. This coulda been a contender.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Compared with ("The Sixth Sense"), there's no contest. Stir of Echoes has been outrun and outclassed.

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.

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.

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."

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Director Koepp relies more heavily on editing tricks than old-fashioned atmosphere.