Monday, March 14, 2011

The Echo - Dollar Bin Film

2008 - 96 mins. - Rated R
D: Yam Laranas
C: Jesse Bradford, Kevin Durand, Amelia Warner, Jamie Bloch, Hrant Alianak, Iza Calzado, Jayne Eastwood, Carlos Leon, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee

Young man released on parole goes to live in his deceased mother's apartment, but starts to hear odd noises and a couple living next door to him that is fighting all sorts of odd hours throughout the day.

Marketed as being from the executive producers of The Grudge and The Ring, the influence of those two films is all to evident in The Echo from the film's predictable story to the film's Americanized take on the special effects. Still, The Echo has many suspenseful, stylishly presented set pieces throughout with Jesse Bradford turning in one of his best performances in years. The film's use of sound allows for terrifying scenarios to unfold in the viewers mind. It's when The Echo visuals what is going on, that it loses its effectiveness. An image, a picture being presented right in front of the viewer to see is never going to be as effective as the image, the picture that a viewer paints in their mind when a horror film forces the viewer to conceptualize what is going on in their head. Still, for most of the The Echo's running time, it's an effective and potent film. It's just that when The Echo gives into typical ghost story cliches, that's when it disappoints.

-Brandon Sites http://bigdaddyhorrorreviews.com/

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