While he is establishing the supernatural plot, Koepp also lets us know that Tom and Maggie truly love each other and want to do what is right, despite their personal problems. As with the Freelings in "Poltergeist", the Witzkys are an ordinary family who have been placed in an extraordinary situation. One of the factors that makes "Stir of Echoes" effective is the believability of the characters.
Whereas "The Sixth Sense" had one big question which was answered at the end, "Stir of Echoes" has the viewer questioning the reality of what Tom is experiencing throughout the film, creating a sense of tension which builds with each scene. And as Tom has gained some abilities to foresee the future, there are some nice scenes that play with both time and space. But, as Tom’s visions become more powerful, we get to see more and more of them.
Writer/director David Koepp starts things off slowly, by only offering us a glimpse of Tom’s visions at the beginning. This isn’t the case with "Stir of Echoes", which offers the hypnosis scene within the first 10 minutes of the film and I was hooked from there. "The Sixth Sense" is a very subtle and deliberate film, and as I had the ending figured out before I saw it, I always felt that I was waiting for something to happen. Still, it didn’t help with the box office totals.) While the stories have some similarities, the way in which they are told is different. (Artisan wisely kept this fact out of the ads for the film and focused solely on Bacon’s character. The similarities between "Stir of Echoes" and "The Sixth Sense" are very obvious, especially the shared plot point of a young boy who can communicate with ghosts. Once Tom fully understands the mystery that the visions have led him into, he finds not only his sanity at stake, but the lives of his family as well. Unfortunately, the visions are also slowly driving him mad and he withdraws from Maggie and Jake. Tom begins to understand that his visions are a message leading him to solve a crime from the past. It seems that the hypnosis has somehow unlocked a latent psychic ability in Tom, similar to the one that Jake has. After that, Tom begins to have bizarre visions of a girl in his house and of a violent attack. Tom is hypnotized and wakes up disoriented and very thirsty. Tom asks to be hypnotized, which Lisa reluctantly does. Then, at a party, Maggie’s sister Lisa (Illeana Douglas), who is into new-age living, begins to espouse her beliefs in hypnotism. They appear to have a very normal life, except for the fact that Jake has a habit of talking to invisible people. They play with their son and go to parties with their friends. Tom works as a telephone lineman and Maggie is a nurse. Witzky, along with his wife Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) and son Jake (Zachary David Cope), have recently moved into a house in urban Chicago. "Stir of Echoes" focuses on Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon). While Matheson obviously tackles many subjects within the sci-fi/fantasy/horror realm, "Stir of Echoes" is truly a tale of the supernatural and writer/director David Koepp has built upon the source novel to create a truly creepy film. He also wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s "Duel". Other films based on Matheson’s work include, "The Incredible Shrinking Man", "The Last Man on Earth" (which was also filmed as "Omega Man"), "Somewhere in Time", and "What Dreams May Come". "Stir of Echoes" is based on a novel by author Richard Matheson. While "The Sixth Sense" packed them into the theaters, I think that the newly released "Stir of Echoes" DVD will help more people to realize that perhaps "The Sixth Sense" is not the better film of the two. But, I am here today to offer another perspective. As we all know, "The Sixth Sense" was the overwhelming winner of this battle, outgrossing "Stir of Echoes" by some $256 million domestically, and winning favor with many critics. "The Sixth Sense" was released in August, and "Stir of Echoes" followed in early September. This past fall, we had another competition between similar films. In all of these cases, there was always one film that outperformed the other, both financially and critically, though it could be argued whether either party – critics and moviegoers alike – had really picked the better film. Due to the cannibalistic nature of the Hollywood system, there have been several instances over the past decade where two films with very similar storylines have been released in a short span of time.
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