Stir of Echoes (1999)
Directed by David Koepp
After being hypnotized by his sister-in-law, Tom Witzky begins seeing haunting visions of a girl's ghost and a mystery begins to unfold around her.
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What critics compared Stir of Echoes to
Koepp is probably best known as a screenwriter -- he's worked frequently with Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma, on pictures like "War of the Worlds" and "Carlito's Way" -- but his directing credits include a poetic little supernatural thriller called "Stir of Echoes," the kind of picture that proves a filmmaker knows how to do a lot with a little.
Koepp has also directed in the past, but they've mostly been low-key thrillers (Stir of Echoes, Secret Window).
Director David Knoepp, known more for the things he has written (Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, War of the Worlds and Jurassic Park) than the things he has directed (Stir of Echoes), helms his first comedy with a deft, confident hand.
Cowriter (with his "Zathura" colleague John Kamps)/director David Koepp has visited the supernatural before with the creepy "Stir of Echoes" and campy King adaptation "Secret Window."
His directorial efforts, The Trigger Effect and Secret Window had their share of attributes but neither stood a candle to his underrated Stir of Echoes, which was the ghost story everyone should have seen in 1999 instead of The Sixth Sense.
This is only fair, since Koepp’s very effective supernatural thriller Stir of Echoes, which was released a month after Sense, got buried in the rush to (over)praise Shyamalan’s film.
The concept of the film pays homage to the likes of Stir of Echoes and a horror short story written by W. W. Jacobs and originally published in 1902 called The Monkey’s Paw .
With supernatural dread lifted directly from the likes of Stir of Echoes and The Sixth Sense , The Black Phone features a breakthrough performance from Madeleine McGraw while Ethan Hawke’s hauntingly memorable turn as The Grabber is felt in a hair-raising sense; like someone who has unknowingly snuck up behind you and waits in your peripheral for that dramatic reveal.
And as a director, he made the unjustly overlooked 2000 supernatural thriller "Stir of Echoes," with Kevin Bacon, which shimmered with sustained eeriness.
David Koepp, coming off a string of successes as a director ("Stir of Echoes") and writer ("Panic Room," "Spider-Man"), extends his impressive run here by not tipping his hand too soon.
Although writer/director David Koepp ("Stir of Echoes") gives the proceedings an unsettling atmosphere and Johnny Depp delivers one of his typically fine-tuned performances, "Secret Window" wraps up with an ending that's as preposterous as, well, the ending of most later Stephen King works.
Screenwriter-director David Koepp ( "Stir of Echoes" ) revels in the horror-flick irrationality of Depp's character, who is dumb enough to keep going back to the cabin again and again, even after Shooter graduates from killing dogs to arson and murder, predictably implicating the novelist along the way.
His previous film, the overly conventional ghost story Stir of Echoes (1999), is one example, and the transparent way Secret Window gives up its own secret is another.
Fortunately, writer-director David Koepp (Stir of Echoes) complicates the tension by focusing on Rainey's dealings with his ex-wife (Maria Bello) and her boyfriend (Timothy Hutton), a buttinsky who may or may not have sinister intentions.
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There are some dead end subplots involving a politically-correct feminist art instructor, Roberta Allsworth (Illeana Douglas of "Stir of Echoes"), a would-be boyfriend, Josh (Brad Renfro of "Apt Pupil"), a would-be girlfriend, Enid's father, (Bob Balaban of "The Majestic") getting back together with Enid's hated stepmother, Maxine (Teri Garr of "Tootsie").
Ironically, Enid must make up art class during summer school in order to complete her diploma, where she drolly endures the antics of clueless teacher Roberta (Illeana Douglas, "Stir of Echoes").
Like The Rolling Stoneâ??s â??Time Is on My Sideâ?? in Fallen, or â??Paint it Blackâ?? in Stir of Echoes, The Doorsâ?? â??Break on Throughâ?? and â??Riders on the Stormâ?? add hints of nuance in an otherwise exposition-ridden presentation.
In her race against time to solve the mystery behind "The Ring" (and please don't expect me to specify what 'The Ring' actually is), Rachel enlists the help of not only her longtime friend and colleague Noah (Martin Henderson), but also her young son Aidan (David Dorfman), who, like the Hayley Joel Osment role in "The Sixth Sense" and the little girl in "Stir of Echoes," seems to have a gift for communicating with those in a different plane of existence, although he really doesn't want anyone to think so.
Working with cinematographer Fred Murphy ("Stir of Echoes"), who knows how to bring out the intrinsic scare quotient in winter-naked trees with camera angles, and editor Brian Berdan ("Blue Velvet"), Pellington maintains a sense of dread without ever fully revealing the titular mothman.
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Of course Fincher, and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Stir of Echoes), are smart enough to realize that a mother and daughter hanging out in a room, while the Larry, Curly and Moe of crime are wandering around outside, isn't exactly frightening enough to keep an audience on the edge of its seat for two hours, so they throw in a few pertinent plot points to add to the unwitting heroines' predicament.
Director David Fincher ("Seven," "Fight Club") takes David Koepp's ("Stir of Echoes") genre screenplay and makes something special with dazzling technical work and his Oscar winning star.
While the notion of a family holed up in such an impenetrable fortress waiting for the criminals to take what they want and then leave might sound rather limited in both potential and setting, Fincher and screenwriter David Koepp ("Stir of Echoes," "Jurassic Park") manage to milk the premise for everything it's worth and then some.
"Panic Room" falters in a few significant places, not the least of which is an inherent weakness in the script (by David Koepp, "Stir of Echoes" ) that requires the burglars to undergo a sudden change of heart in order to give the film its suspense.
The complexity of the characters as they act out the motives that drive them is a superb creation of screenwriter David Koepp ("Stir of Echoes") and director David Fincher who, here, is far more successful with his characters and drama than he was with his uneven "The Fight Club" and the overlauded "Seven".