The Echo, 2008.
Directed by Yam Laranas.
Starring Jesse Bradford, Kevin Durand and Amelia Warner.
SYNOPSIS:
Bobby Walker (Jesse Bradford) is fresh out of prison and living in his dead mother’s apartment as a condition of his parole. Plagued by eerie echoes of the dead trapped in the building, Bobby’s terror mounts as he begins to suspect his neighbours had a sinister hand in his mother’s death…and could come for him next.
Now perhaps with the words like The Ring and The Grudge strapped across the top of the cover you’re expecting a lot. The cover illustration is a pale eyed ghost girl stood in front of a smoke seeping Hell door, the words “…Are you my mummy?” beneath her feet. Possibly due to these things I had set the bar too high for the film. You see both versions of The Grudge and The Ring scared the heck out of me and I thought this would too. I was very much mistaken.
The Echo starts rather well. Bobby has been paroled from prison, and has to live in his mother’s flat. The flat where his mother locked herself in her bedroom and starved herself to death due to the noises, or echoes if you will. Hardly a word is spoke for around fifteen minutes, which made me interested in where this was going. I forgave the old man playing chess, alone, in the lobby and I forgave the lonely girl playing on a tiny piano outside his room due to this mounting tension from the lack of dialogue.
However, its chances are gone when the scares start and all they appear to be are normal noises (echoes) you’d hear in your home. I live in a Victorian terraced house and I hear these noises both day and night and I’m yet to be scared, and this film just isn’t scary. There are the odd moments when a scare (dead person appears, person walks past a corridor etc.) is inserted, but you don’t jump. It plays out like someone who is attempting to make a horror film. They’ve have seen loads of cool horror moments in other films, which they then drop them into theirs. The problem is other horror directors have a knack for timing and unfortunately Yam misses it throughout the film.
Fifty minutes into the film and still nothing is really scaring you or giving you a reason to watch this movie. You’ve guessed what’s in the neighbours flat, you’ve worked out the story and you can tell what’s going to happen. You aren’t interested in getting to the end – which also bothered me as I thought, ‘Isn’t that just what he did?’ and ‘Why is that any different?’
I know The Echo is aimed at a 15 audience but still, don’t we deserve 1) better timed scares 2) a better story, and 3) a cover that isn’t one big fib?
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published April 8, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
