Line #22 Film/StirOfEchoes


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stir_of_echoes.jpg]]
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3	''Stir of Echoes'' is a 1999 thriller written and directed by Creator/DavidKoepp, starring Mr. Six Degrees himself, Creator/KevinBacon. It's TheFilmOfTheBook of the 1958 Creator/RichardMatheson novel, though not a very strict adaptation of it.
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5	At a party Tom Witzky (Bacon) scoffs at his sister-in-law Lisa's (Creator/IlleanaDouglas) belief in psychic abilities and the paranormal. She hypnotizes him as a joke, and plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that he be more "open" to everything, which causes his latent psychic powers to stop being latent. Even stranger and scarier, his son Jake's psychic abilities, which aren't latent, begin picking up on weird things in and around the house, much to the dismay of his wife Maggie (Creator/KathrynErbe).
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7	Eventually Tom and Jake realize the presence they sense is a ghost of a girl (Creator/JenniferMorrison) who was murdered in the house some time ago.
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9	It had a MadeForTV Sequel, ''Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming'' starring Creator/RobLowe, which appeared on [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]], so [[Film/SyfyChannelOriginalMovie you know]] [[InNameOnly what to expect]].
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12	!!This film provides examples of:
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14	* AbortedArc: The club of psychics disappears after the most prominent member gives Maggie exposition on what Tom and Jake are going through, and she completely forgets about them afterwards.
15	* AttemptedRape: What leads to the events in the movie that Tom has to relive through {{psychometry}}.
16	* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Frank (who the audience assumed shot himself) and Maggie show up at the last moment to save Tom.]]
17	* ChekhovsGun: Literal. Frank [=McCarthy=] makes an offhand remark about owning guns early in the movie. Do you think more than one gun will eventually play a narrative role?
18	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Tom wakes up from a dream only to have the same events unfold almost exactly. [[spoiler:The dream also shows Frank's comments that he makes at the end, which appear cryptic in the dream without the context.]]
19	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Frank is ready to kill himself for his complicity in covering up Samantha's murder, but changes his mind at the last second to save Tom and Maggie.]]
20	* EarWorm: In-universe. Tom hears his son humming a song, and Tom becomes obsessed with figuring out what song it is: "Paint It Black" by Music/TheRollingStonesBand, specifically a cover version by Gob. [[spoiler:The song was playing during the murder, and was the last thing the victim heard as she suffocated.]]
21	* GhostlyGoals: [[spoiler:Entirely benign in this case: she just wants her corpse found and her murderer brought to justice.]]
22	* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler:Harry and Kurt try to murder Tom after the latter uncovers Samantha's body.]]
23	* HereWeGoAgain: [[spoiler:Tom and Maggie move into a new neighborhood at the end of the film, but the fact that Jake hears far more whispers than before suggests that the paranormal experiences won't be over any time soon.]]
24	* HypnoFool: The premise of the story.
25	* IdiotBall: Subverted. [[spoiler:Though it seems that Tom is being a complete idiot for warning Frank ahead of time that he knows about his son's involvement in Samantha's murder with no witnesses around, Frank doesn't [[HeKnowsTooMuch kill him to keep the secret]] and ends up saving him.]]
26	* ImaginaryFriend: Tom and Maggie mistake who Jake speaks to at first as one of these. It's a ghost.
27	* NeverARunaway: Debbie's mother says that her older daughter, Samantha, ran away. She's actually the girl that was murdered in the house.
28	* OnlySaneMan: Subverted. Maggie believes she's the only one in her family not going insane, because she didn't develop any psychic sensitivities.
29	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The ghost was cleverer post-death than in life, and more direct than a lot of ghosts in other media. She communicated with Tom as clearly as she could, considering his low power psychic ability meant she couldn't literally talk to him as she did with his son. She even convinced his son to talk to her sister to make more connections... which [[FridgeLogic raises the question]] why she didn't just tell the kid all her woes directly. The only alternative being that she didn't want to involve him too much because of his age.
30	* ProductPlacement: The ghost haunting makes Tom thirsty, so he's constantly chugging Minute Maid orange juice. At one point he fills his whole fridge with Minute Maid cartons.
31	* RedHerring: Debbie, after she apparently abducts Jake after he mentions Samantha's name, especially since Tom sees red whenever he looks at her. Turns out she just wants to know what happened to her sister.
32	* RewatchBonus: A lot of off-hand remarks made during the movie take on a new twist when you know what's really going on, such as how Frank keeps going on about what a decent neighborhood it is that they all live in.
33	* ShoutOut: Debbie is reading ''The Shrinking Man'' while babysitting Jake. Both ''The Shrinking Man'' and ''A Stir of Echoes'' novels were written by Creator/RichardMatheson.
34	* SupernaturalProofFather: Gender inverted, as in this case, Dad and son get involved with the ghost, but Mom's the one LockedOutOfTheLoop.
35	* TownWithADarkSecret: Or a UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} Neighborhood with a Dark Secret, actually, but the effect is pretty much the same.
36	* WhamLine:
37	** [[spoiler:"What were we supposed to do? It was an accident."]]
38	** Another one, said by Jake at the beginning of the movie: [[spoiler:"Does it hurt to be dead?"]]

Context Film / StirOfEchoes