EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

David Arnold There seems to be a strange misconception among young, wannabe filmmakers that horror films are the easiest genre to tackle in order to get noticed. While this was very much true in the past, nowadays it's not the easy gateway that it once was, primarily because it's nearly impossible to come up with an original idea or a satisfying enough twist on a familiar one to warrant an entire film being made.Echoes is the kind of flat, uninspired film that only seems to have been made to prove that writer/director Nils Timm could make one. It made no difference to him that it's a massive pile of clichés or that its story makes little to no sense.The problem is that it will make a big difference to those unfortunate enough to sit through it, for they will be treated to a lazily-written film that has nothing to offer anyone looking for a little bit of thrills and chills. At the very least, viewers will be able to play the "plothole game," where you simply add up the number of inexplicable events as the film goes on, including why someone would build a glass house in the middle of the desert, why this couple would want to go stay there, why Anna would choose to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere in her condition, and many more.It's not that it's a badly made film, but rather that the screenplay was simply a mess and it's thanks to this lazy and amateurishly-written screenplay Echoes is nothing but a bland horror (if you can call it that) offering that is more likely to bore you rather than give you the slightest chill.Clichés don't have to be a bad thing if they can be used well, but writer/director Nils Timm seems to be using them whenever possible just because he can't come up with something more original. This leaves us with a film that we feel as though we've seen several time before, concluding with the ultimate insult to the audience in its last few seconds.This is definitely a film to avoid.

Pamela De Graff Scenic Joshua tree locations and modern architecture accent Echoes, a stylish supernatural thriller. In yet the latest horror happening featuring, what else, a writer summoning up the occult, independent filmmaker Nils Trim blends stalker elements with phantasmagoria and tribal mythology in this Southwest supernatural whodunit. In it, Anna (Kate French) is an aspiring writer who suffers from a few minor, common psychological issues, such as partially waking from chronic nightmares only to experience ghastly hallucinations while trapped in a state of sleep paralysis. OK, maybe that's not so minor or common. But heavily medicated Anna has a solution that she thinks will provide good therapy for her condition: spend several days alone, mostly in her underwear, at her boyfriend's curtain-less glass house, It's OK, nobody will see her and fixate upon her -the only other person around for miles is a shadowy, lurking, unshaven man with no fixed address or US citizenship, who's squatting in a decaying trailer a few hundred meters away. There will be plenty of peace and quiet. too. This plot of land, renowned for the perplexing, fatal disappearance of its previous owner, is so isolated from civilization, there's not even any cell phone reception. Makes sense.What could possibly go wrong with this idea?Well, plenty as it turns out, when Anna promptly runs afoul of an apparent wendigo -a particularly malignant one -who fixates upon and sets out to possess her. Plenty of strange occurrences ensue, some of which demand that we accept characters' unlikely choices, and forgive lengthy exposition at the end revealing a complex and melodramatically sensational back-story explanation. But then this is horror, and horror tales and movies often require that we accept melodramatically sensational back-stories, because if we insist upon being too logically demanding and analytic, we might reject the ideas of monsters and ghosts altogether. So we shall allow Echoes to take its artistic license with the credible, we will enjoy its unusual twists and unpredictable, if not illogical turns, because in addition to having some tense moments which are really scary (an increasingly rare commodity in horror movies), Echoes showcases arresting locations and surreal dream sequences emphasized by striking cinematography. Viewers may recognize actor Steven Brand, who plays Ana's boyfriend, from The Scorpion King, and the HBO series The Mind of the Married Man, and Kate French from horror movies Sutures and Channeling. Perhaps the most interesting cast members in Echoes however are cute Oxley, the dog who plays Ana's canine companion "Shadow," with almost human expressiveness, and in a sense, the boyfriend's modernist glass house itself, which features prominently in the film and bears a strong resemblance to the historic Stahl House, a Los Angeles landmark used as a location in numerous films, photo-shoots and ads.

Uberkills I can handle slow films. But even if a film is slow, it's got to have something interesting to keep you engaged. Echoes barely had any of it. There was nothing surprising about the story. A ghostly spirit takes a golden opportunity of using a woman's sleep paralysis problem to hijack her body to well, get revenge on her husband who killed her. That's really it. It does get suspenseful during the first half but by the time the film is going to be over, it's just exposition after exposition. Again, Echoes offered nothing new and spectacular to horror. However, on the bright side, I was quite impressed with the quality of the cinematography and the movie was filmed at some beautiful locations in the California desert. The acting was fairly decent and a minimal cast is always great too.5/10

Dylan McAdams I feel this movie deserves my recommendation and I am glad to see it got out there. I saw this film at a small film festival in Salt Lake City and really liked it. In addition to the screening there was a Q&A with the director/writer Nils Timm and I was blown away when I heard how tiny the budget of this movie was, which made me appreciate this little film even more. It both has the look and feel of a truly mature director and storyteller. No doubt this guy has a bright future I am looking forward to seeing what he will do with a real budget in his hands. It reminded me of a great old fashioned thriller with psychological elements which you rarely come across today. It is not filled with monsters, ghosts and gore, but the movie is tastefully using a few supernatural phenomenons to make the story suspenseful in an "unsilly" way. The director even managed to add a tiny bit of humor in the scene with Billy Wirth. Would have loved to see more of this and of this great actor from the legendary Lost Boys movie!