# Stir of Echoes
**Stir of Echoes** is a 1999 American supernatural horror film directed and written by [David Koepp](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-koepp), adapted from [Richard Matheson](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-matheson)'s 1958 novel *A Stir of Echoes*. It stars [Kevin Bacon](https://www.edgepedia.org/kevin-bacon) as Tom Witzky, a Chicago telephone lineman who, after being hypnotized at a party by his sister-in-law, begins seeing visions of a murdered girl's ghost and becomes obsessed with uncovering what happened to her.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) • [2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | Wide release September 10, 1999 by Artisan Entertainment; released in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2000[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) |
| Source | Based on Richard Matheson's 1958 novel *A Stir of Echoes*; screenplay by David Koepp[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) • [3](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781887368582) |
| Cast | Kevin Bacon (Tom Witzky), Kathryn Erbe (Maggie), Illeana Douglas (Lisa), Zachary David Cope (Jake)[4](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video) |
| Box office | $21,133,087 domestic, $23,059,379 worldwide, against a $12,000,000 production budget[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) |
| Opening weekend | $5,811,664 in 1,888 theaters, ranking third for the weekend[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-sep-14-ca-9875-story.html) |
| Reception | Metascore 67 (Generally Favorable) from 30 critic reviews, 77% positive[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) |
| Format | 99 minutes; rated R for violence, sexuality and language[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens with Jake, Tom and Maggie Witzky's six-year-old son, talking to an unseen presence in the bathroom and asking, "Does it hurt to be dead?"[4](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video) At a neighborhood party, Tom, a skeptic about supernatural powers, taunts his sister-in-law Lisa, a hypnotherapist who admits she is only "almost licensed," until she agrees to hypnotize him.[4](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video) • [6](https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/1803?id=1803) Under hypnosis he relives repressed childhood memories of being bullied, and Lisa plants the suggestion that his mind will remain "clear and free, like an opened door."[7](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf)
The hypnosis works beyond her expectation. Tom begins seeing visions of a teenage girl, Samantha Kozac, who has been missing for six months, haunting his house, and he becomes consumed with solving the mystery of her disappearance; Lisa tells him the only way to stop the visions is to help the girl he sees.[7](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf) • [15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stir_of_echoes/cast-and-crew) Jake, it emerges, is also haunted by the same presence, and neither father nor son knows what she wants.[4](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video) Maggie, initially supportive, comes into contact with a Chicago police officer who is himself a "Receiver," and stumbles across a meeting of other people who can perceive supernatural dimensions.[8](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stir-of-echoes-1999)
## The Sixth Sense comparison
*Stir of Echoes* was released little more than a month after [M. Night Shyamalan](https://www.edgepedia.org/m-night-shyamalan)'s *The Sixth Sense*, which was still performing strongly at the box office, and the two films have been compared ever since because both feature children and adults who perceive the dead.[7](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf) • [9](https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2024/09/10/25-years-ago-a-logan-square-boy-heard-dead-people-in-stir-of-echoes) Koepp had read the script for *The Sixth Sense* and, according to the *Chicago Sun-Times*, unsuccessfully lobbied the studio for an April 1999 release, but the film still arrived second and was widely received as an echo of the earlier hit.[9](https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2024/09/10/25-years-ago-a-logan-square-boy-heard-dead-people-in-stir-of-echoes)
Reviewers nonetheless drew consistent distinctions between the two films. Commentators described *Stir of Echoes* as a more straightforward psychological horror film while *The Sixth Sense* is closer to a psychological drama, and as a creepy whodunit in a Hitchcockian mode rather than a straight ghost story with a late plot reversal.[7](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf) • [10](https://www.gamesradar.com/stir-of-echoes-review/) The San Francisco Chronicle's review called it "much more down and dirty" than *The Sixth Sense*, with more visceral thrills.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) Unlike Shyamalan's film, the child Jake is not the focus; the adult Tom is the protagonist.[7](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf)
## Style and technique
The film is set in a blue-collar Chicago neighborhood where everyone on the block knows one another, and reviews repeatedly credited its grounding in working-class detail, foregrounding class worries in plot and character motivation.[8](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stir-of-echoes-1999)
One noted in-camera effect films the ghost at slow speed, six frames per second, giving her a strange, otherworldly way of moving.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) The ghost does not speak; she bridges the gap with Tom through a musical motif, the Rolling Stones song "Paint It Black," playing on a radio during her murder, and when Tom finally witnesses her death in a vision, Jake's humming of the song overcomes the diegetic music even though he is not physically present in the scene.[11](https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/36131/1/2627928%20Sedgwick%20PhD%20Thesis%20Complete.pdf) • [12](https://uplopen.com/books/1096/files/631f06fe-5cb0-4c7d-a942-84dd5fa152ce.pdf)
## Source novel
Richard Matheson published *A Stir of Echoes* in 1958, one of his early novels, and wrote a screenplay adaptation soon afterward that was never produced.[3](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781887368582) A limited signed Gauntlet Press edition reprinting the novel together with Matheson's unproduced screenplay, with an afterword by Koepp, appeared in 2002.[3](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781887368582) Koepp's adaptation concentrates on the ghost-story climax of Matheson's work rather than the broader implications of the power Tom acquires.[13](https://letterboxd.com/somekindofaman/film/stir-of-echoes/)
## Box office and reception
The film opened in third place with $5.8 million on the weekend of September 10, 1999, in 1,888 theaters, and finished its domestic run at $21,133,087, nearly double its $12 million budget; international receipts added $1,926,292 for a worldwide total of $23,059,379.[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-sep-14-ca-9875-story.html) Its domestic share was 91.6 percent, and the video release followed on February 1, 2000 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.[2](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes)
Critics were broadly favorable. On Metacritic the film scored 67 from 30 reviews, with 23 positive, 7 mixed, and none negative.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) Praise centered on Bacon's performance and the film's atmosphere; Roger Ebert's review noted the film's weakest section as the digging Koepp makes Tom do to make the point, while crediting the blue-collar setting.[8](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stir-of-echoes-1999) [The Boston Globe](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-boston-globe) found it needed "less down-to-earth flavor and more unearthly force," and the Deseret News review called it clumsy next to *The Sixth Sense*, objecting to profane dialogue and a simulated rape scene shown from the victim's point of view.[1](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/) • [14](https://www.deseret.com/1999/9/10/19465079/stir-of-echoes/) Later commentary has treated the film as a cult favorite overshadowed by its timing; retrospective coverage in 2024 marked 25 years since release, and streaming-era write-ups describe it as an underrated supernatural film that holds up on rewatch.[9](https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2024/09/10/25-years-ago-a-logan-square-boy-heard-dead-people-in-stir-of-echoes) • [4](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video)
## References
1. [Stir of Echoes Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/stir-of-echoes/)
2. [Stir of Echoes (1999), Box Office and Financial Information, The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Stir-of-Echoes)
3. [Stir of Echoes: The Screenplay/The Novel by Richard Matheson, Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781887368582)
4. [This Kevin Bacon supernatural thriller is so good it gave me nightmares, Tom's Guide](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/prime-video/this-kevin-bacon-supernatural-thriller-is-so-good-it-gave-me-nightmares-stream-it-before-it-leaves-prime-video)
5. [It's Scary, but That's What Audiences Like, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-sep-14-ca-9875-story.html)
6. [Stir of Echoes, Film Review, Spirituality & Practice](https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/1803?id=1803)
7. [Review of Stir of Echoes (1999), repository.bsi.ac.id](https://repository.bsi.ac.id/repo/files/340928/download/tesis.pdf)
8. [Stir Of Echoes movie review & film summary, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stir-of-echoes-1999)
9. [25 years ago, a Logan Square boy heard dead people in 'Stir of Echoes', Chicago Sun-Times](https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2024/09/10/25-years-ago-a-logan-square-boy-heard-dead-people-in-stir-of-echoes)
10. [Stir Of Echoes review, GamesRadar+](https://www.gamesradar.com/stir-of-echoes-review/)
11. [Sedgwick PhD thesis, University of Stirling](https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/36131/1/2627928%20Sedgwick%20PhD%20Thesis%20Complete.pdf)
12. [Academic chapter on Stir of Echoes, UPL open books](https://uplopen.com/books/1096/files/631f06fe-5cb0-4c7d-a942-84dd5fa152ce.pdf)
13. [Review by Geoffrey Broomer, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/somekindofaman/film/stir-of-echoes/)
14. [Stir of Echoes, Deseret News](https://www.deseret.com/1999/9/10/19465079/stir-of-echoes/)
15. [Stir of Echoes, Cast and Crew, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stir_of_echoes/cast-and-crew)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Supernatural horror films*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license