The Echo (2008)

So much average

Best movie of this year hands down!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A remake of the Phillipino flick, 'Sigaw', 'The Echo' follows the traditional path of the typical European/Asian claustrophobic chiller flick. The story is simplistic, predictable and weak. Some of the subplots are uninteresting and don't really fit with the main story. It starts off slow and the tense atmosphere is very well maintained. This is no slasher flick. It's mostly atmospheric and that's where it succeeds. The creepy and claustrophobic interiors of Bobby's building and the stylistic execution, first rate cinematography and sound effects contribute very well in creating tension. While the lead character Bobby is well developed, I felt that the other characters suffered from poor writing. Jesse Bradford is excellent and he confidently carries the movie displaying depth and restraint. Iza Calzado is very good despite the way her role was written.As flawed as it is, it's not a bad suggestion for a one-time watch especially for those who enjoy films of this kind.

I have to admit that at first I was captured by Echo. The atmosphere created is great, the building that the plot is set in is pretty creepy, the actors do a great job and the back story of the main character coming out of jail also gave it a different and dramatic edge. After looking at the trailer for the original movie Sigaw it seemed thy remade it pretty equal story-wise and just put it in a New York Setting.So here is my problem... why the hell do we need remakes of these movies? If the original movie is good, watch it. I didn't even know that this was a remake when watching it but the clues are left and right. Its just the same thing as Ring, Ju-On, Dark Water and the likes. The basic plot is about something bad that happened in the past and haunts a building and its new inhabitants. We've seen it... the ghosts are female again with the difference that they don't really go for a ghost look here but for a more realistic zombie-kind look. The main character is portrayed really well, there is some nice scares but the more the story unfolds the more you are let down by a plot that just makes no sense to me. The end is a joke with no resolution whatsoever. Funny thing is that its a clichéd happy end with ghosts finding their peace but topped of with a rather bleak outlook for our main character. I hate happy endings but here i found it damn misplaced.Many things seem random... the fingernails in the piano, the whole piano melody thing, the hole in the wall, the people around the main character dying off like flies just because they knocked at his door once (Why hector has to die makes no sense unless you aim for the bleak ending and don't care for logic). We never learn why the ghosts can harm people by beating them up really bad and we never learn why its the good ones that get killed by the "good ghosts" (yeah, there is a bad one in there too!). Too many things are just thrown in there but most of it doesn't come together as a coherent story in the end.So if you take the mysterious unfolding of Ring, the haunted apartment story of Ju-On, the rather down to earth story behind the ghosts from Dark Water and put it all in a blender with a hundred ideas from other similar movies you get the mash that Echo is.Sure, its atmospheric but if you do a remake of a movie it needs to have a solid story and Echo simply doesn't. The writing is just bad. So the really good casting and acting as well as choice of setting is just plain wasted because some idiot studio went for another Asian remake because everybody does it nowadays.I never understood why they remade a mediocre Asia movie like "one missed call" and I don't get this one either. Stop wasting money on this rubbish and invest it into good local screenwriters scripts who surely come up with fresher and more coherent plots than these.Someone needs to start a petition to stop remakes of any kind, its gotten out of hand.

The Echo had a handful of scenes with an uncomfortable creepiness akin to classic J-Horror. Rarely do I reach for the remote anymore having experienced most every range of horror film out there, but this one seeped under my skin and had me on edge more than twice. And it is that sort of unsettling moodiness combined with frights you hafta' be paying attention to catch. You know, the kind where after they've come and gone you must back em up for a second take. Truly those "WTF" type instances.Jesse Bradford plays Bobby, a twenty something recently released from prison after doing a stint for killing a guy who attempted to rape his HOT girlfriend (played by Ameiia Warner) in a restroom. Having nowhere else to go, he heads back to the ol' East Village NYC neighborhood. Mom has died a spooky death from starvation, he learns, when he moves in to her old apartment. There's bloody fingernails on the piano keys and rumbles in the walls and a mean-looking cop next door who enjoys beating his wife and little girl. Bobby starts to see things, though, and these things aren't making any sense and they're a bit ghastly to boot. It's when Bobby decides he can no longer put up with the abuse he is overhearing next door and reports it to the cops, only to have them respond to a completely vacant apartment next door, that things go from odd to friggin' strange.Bobby's apartment reminded me a lot of the apartment in the game Silent Hill 4: The Room with its eerily watered down dingy browns and rusts. There are holes in the peeling plaster walls and everything gives off the mood of worn and filthy. It's a truly lonely place that flattened my spirits each time Bobby returned home.The Echo is not without its disappointments and inconsistencies which converge on a far too abrupt ending that leaves the viewer feeling a bit jipped. Oh well, though. It is a decently freaky ride getting there.

After reading the other reviews I feel compelled to right a comment on this movie.The other reviews describe it as a future 'cult hit', it is compared to 'The Exorcist' and how it is so realistic - 'something that may have happened in reality'?Really! Well no, not at all, on any level. It is far too generic to be a cult hit, seen this type of film a million times (think 'Grudge' or 'The Ring' or any other east Asian remake), it is not even slightly like 'The Exorcist' (the build up really isn't that slow) and why the comparison is made I'll never know, as for realistic - gimmie a break, it's realistic if you live in 'spooky Asian ghost land', and last time I checked that place wasn't real.So, in a nutshell what we have is a half decent ghost story that we've all seen before. If you've seen any of the other East Asia movie remakes then you know what to expect. In fact the 'scary' parts are identical in all the remakes - pale Asian lady and/or child pulling scary faces and moving about a bit strange. I find it strange that when Hollywood remakes an Asian film they transplant China or were ever the original was made for the USA (Grudge being an exception), make all the characters Caucasian, but leave the scary people as Asians! Were the scary people in the Asian version Caucasian? No, so why not transplant the whole thing, I mean it's almost racist, and Asian women walking weird aren't scary!Anyway, rant over, overall it's OK as a rental, but nothing to shout about.5/10