Customer Reviews

The Echo

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

...but I won't. I felt cheated by the ending of this movie. The beginning was unique and atmospheric, mysterious and intriguing. But toward the end it turned into just another horror movie explanation ending, and the horror itself was more pathetic and a social commentary rather than scary. I don't think the secret of the building was worthy of the psychosis that it inspired in the residents of the building. I think the premise for the movie seemed better in the screen writer's mind than it looked on film. I would have rather not had any explanation at the end and I think I would have enjoyed this movie more. For me it was a letdown, but it was still worth the viewing.

Though not a great movie this is a solid, honest effort for those looking for something with a bit more resonance in a horror movie.

Jesse Bradford (who could easily pass for Colin Ferrell's brother) plays Bobby. Recently out of prison, he's trying to put his life back together. He moves into his recently deceased mother's apartment and weird stuff starts happening. He's seeing and hearing things that, as it turns out, are not really happening. But his girlfriend and others in the building are experiencing the same hallucinations involving a resident cop who may have beaten his wife to death. So what's the scoop?

That's where the movie falters. It does a decent enough job of building things and planting clues, but in any movie of this sort everything usually builds to a punchline. Here the punchline never comes. The movie just sort of stops and things aren't resolved.

This has a lot going for it. The performances are good. The set direction is great. The building where most events take place is an old New York City building long in need of repair. Everything has a run down, decrepit feeling to it which adds to the overall sense of despair. The shuddering, Japanese style, ghostly apparitions have been overplayed in too many horror movies as of late. Thank God they keep it to a minimum here. But, overall, this has a good look and feel to it. The music score is good and, overall, it's a very professional effort. Had the producers figured a way to provide a more satisfying ending, this would be worth another star.

This movie is one of the best horror movies I've seen. The movie is very creepy, tense and has some "jumpy" moments. The movie has a great plot, acting is very good and the ending is original. The moral of the story...the best part. Loved it.

The Amazon reviews on this movie were pretty good so I bought a used copy.I was excited to watch it..Sooo dissapointed.It was boring and too drawn out,not scary at all and nothing exciting happens until the last 20 minutes of the movie,and the ending was dumb.
So you have to suffer for over an hour of watching the main character do household chores and making dumb faces when he hears a noise.Terrible movie and a real waste of time and money.
Pass this one up!!

Slow creepy atmosphere builds into some very skin crawling moments. Like THE RING, This is a horror movie for thinkers and not gore hounds!

This is one of those movies to watch if you have absolutely nothing else to do. It's very slow, very predictable, etc., etc., just like most other so-called horror flicks. Waiting on Hollywood to release a worthwhile movie of any kind is like waiting on the next pass of Haley's Comet..., this is especially true with horror movies. The last time I saw a good horror movie was "The Descent." Now THAT was a horror movie!! It was so original..., so very unique., so well casted & directed, etc., etc. It's already a classic. Why can't Hollywood make more movies like that?? So, while we wait on another "The Descent" to be made, I guess we have to suffer with B-level stuff like "The Echo."

~This review will appear in the June 2010 issue of Twisted Dreams Magazine~


Have you ever seen someone in need and offered to help? Or are you one of those people who passes people by and thinks, someone else will do it - don't get involved?

What if your lack of involvement caused devastating circumstances to the victim? What if because of your refusal to help, they sought vengeance against you?

Meet Bobby. Newly out of jail (and I later found out that it was not his fault and was reminded of how badly the American "justice" system sucks. But you'll have to watch to find out why he was jailed!) and just wanting to start over again. He tries to pick up the pieces of what was once his life and moves into his deceased mother's apartment.

And that's when the trouble starts.

It begins with noises, odd and troubling sounds that wake him up and then the visions of his dead mother begin to play havoc with his mind and he is slowly sucked into a never-ending nightmare.

His neighbor, Gina (Calzado) is an abused wife whose husband, Walter (played with far too chilling realism by Durand) likes to come home and smack around on both her and their daughter, Carly.

Bobby may have been in prison, but he still won't stand for his neighbor - cop or not - to beat on his wife and kid and tries to help...but things just start getting stranger.

The visions begin to happen more and more frequently and it's not just Bobby who finds himself thrust into the middle of something he doesn't understand. The visions also begin to manifest themselves to Alyssa (Warner) and to other tenants of the building.

However...the more Bobby tries to help, the more dangerous Walter becomes with devastating consequences to Gina and Carly.

But things are not as they seem and as Bobby slowly loses his sanity (or so he feels) he finds out the real reason why he's being tormented and what he has to do to stop it.

This is a great Noir movie, simply seething with dark tension and chills. I sat on my couch, anxiously anticipating each scene and was so involved that my husband looked at me and said, "Holding hands with yourself, dear?"
I looked down and my hands were clamped so tightly together I was cutting off circulation.

Dark, tragic and with a stellar performance by Kevin Durand as the wife-beating cop that will leave you hating him, but feeling solemn compassion for him as well, culminate to a head in the explosive ending and you'll never quite look at cops...or apartment buildings the same, ever again.

I love this genre of movies and the description sounded too good to pass up. Some have said it starts off slow. I guess it does depending on whether you want to be jumping out of your seat from scene one, or let the movie build to keep you interested in what's about to happen next. I liked the way it built up because it held my interest to try and figure out what was going to happen next.

'The Echo' is not your typical ghost/paranormal/horror movie. Yet it still has just enough elements of all three. I don't want to say too much about the movie because I don't want to give anything away or spoil it for others. What I will say is this has every element of every scary movie, every ghost movie, and every creepy paranormal movie. The only difference is it's done in a way that actually has a point and real meaning beyond a curse or an angry spirit terrorizing ppl just for the sake of being creepy.

There's a real sense of purpose and meaning to what's going on that we don't find out until the end. Anyone who says this movie is predictable is wrong. I highly and strongly recommend 'The Echo' for anyone who likes this genre to begin with. But the twist will leave you thinking long after the movie is over. Definitely worth adding to any movie collection.

The Echo is a remake of the 2004 Filipino horror flick "Sigaw", also shot by director Yam Laranas. While it's a visually impressive movie, I was a bit let down at its lack of originality.

What's enjoyable about this film is that it's an atmospheric thriller. Laranas has a quality cast to work with, and offers good visuals.

The film also shines an interesting spotlight at what's known as the "Bystander Effect." The Echo takes a page from real life examples of this effect, which had really occurred with New Yorkers such as Kitty Genovese.

The problem is that aside from that psychological effect, the film's concept just isn't original. Countless other horror flicks have used the "right a wrong to end the curse" theme. The Ring, The Grudge, Flatliners, Sometimes They Come Back.

The whole point of showing what happens when people don't help others is wasted thanks to the randomness of the victims (a witnessing neighbor is spared, yet a random visitor isn't). The film also drags on, making the audience wait a little too long for the payoff.

So while it was shot well, this would have been a much more enjoyable movie had it incorporated a more unique concept. I'd suggest renting it before you consider buying the DVD.

The Echo (Yam Laranas, 2008)

I saw trailers for The Echo on Chiller TV, and it actually looked pretty good. Thus, I rented it (I do like to see these things without silly blocking and commercials) and sat down with it over the weekend to see if it lived up to its promise. Then, in the opening credits, I saw "produced by Roy Lee", and figured I'd hate it. Lee has been responsible for about half the unbearable slew of remakes that have come out of Hollywood in the past five years, and most of them have been worthless. Which made it all the more surprising when this one was actually about as good as I had originally expected it to be.

The Echo, based on the Filipino film Sigaw and directed by the original director, is the story of Bobby (Jesse Bradford, a solid character actor you've seen in at least a dozen films; Bring It On, Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, Flags of Our Fathers, many others), who just got out of prison and moves into the East Village roach motel his late mother used to live in while trying to get his life back together. He's working on that, gets himself a job and starts kinda-sorta hooking back up with his old girlfriend, but he's getting really, really annoyed at the cop who lives nextdoor who's always beating on his wife and kid. But there's a problem: when he finally calls the cops and gets a domestic unit sent out to take a report, there's no one in the apartment...

Laranas (Patient X) was, at least in the remake (I haven't seen the original yet, will soon), heavily influenced by the Kitty Genovese case; its invisible, historical fingerprints are smeared all over this script. That may end up being a bit of a spoiler, though once Bobby understands what he's dealing with, there's no real secret about what needs to be done about it (one of the movie's best scenes is a confrontation between Bobby and the only other person living on the floor, a recluse played by Pruitt Taylor Vince); in this regard, the film is something of a letdown, because the only real suspense to be had is whether Bobby's got the cojones to do what needs to be done. On the other hand, as far as American remakes of Asian horror films go, this is one of the few from the past few years that hasn't either been markedly inferior or simply unnecessary. If you're wondering whether any of those still exist, pick this up and have your faith bolstered, if only a little. ***