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From SCIFIPEDIA
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Stir of Echoes is a 1999 horror film from writer and directer David Koepp. The film starred Kevin Bacon as Tom Witzky who is hypnotized by his sister-in-law and begins to have violent visions of the ghost of a young woman who disappeared from their neighborhood six months ago. Kathryn Erbe stars as his wife Maggie and Zachary David Cope as his young son Jake.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
Plot
During a party, Tom suggests that his sister-in-law, Lisa's (Illeana Douglas) recent studies of hypnosis are far fetched and challenges her to hypnotize him. She eventually agrees but he remembers nothing of what he did under hypnosis and instead recalls the horrifying death of a young woman. He is unable to escape the images when he returns home, continuing to see horrible visions of death. Lisa later admits that while he was under she told him to open up his mind. Tom believes that her command is responsible for his experiences.
When his son's babysitter becomes upset after hearing Jake mention talking to her missing sister Samantha, she kidnaps Jake but Tom, away from home at the time immediately realizes what is happening and intercepts her. After learning the girl he has seen in his waking nightmares may be Samantha he asks his friends about her and also questions his son, who has eerie abilities of his own, about his conversations with her.
A policeman with similar abilities tells him that Samantha will not leave him alone until he does what she wants. Tom returns to Lisa demanding that she hypnotize him again and close whatever doors she opened. Instead, Samantha invades his session to confer the message to dig. He returns home and follows her advice and begins to dig in his backyard and later in his basement.
He discovers Samantha's body in his home's basement and realizes two of his friends' sons were responsible for her death. One became so overwrought he shot himself and only Tom's quick intervention, led by a dream, saved him from death. Tom confronts the suicidal young man's father, Frank, with the news and his friend admits he helped the boys hide the body to save their future.
Distraught, Frank forces him to leave the basement and he does so and hears a gun shot. Moments later, his landlord and son arrive to prevent him from revealing their crime to the police. They attack him just as his wife returns from her grandmother's funeral. She attempts to aid him but they are both saved from the homicidal father and son duo when Frank reappears from the basement and shoots both men.
Sequels and Remakes
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