Now available on DVD
Cast:
Sean Young as Laura
David Starzyk as Guy
Juliet Landau as Claire
M. Emmet Walsh as Neil
Felix Williamson as Kenneth
Barbara Bain as Lenore
Directed by Harry Bromley Davenport
Review:
Who doesn’t love a good ghost story?
Nothing beats getting the bejesus scared outta of you by tortured beings from the afterlife that just didn’t have a cheery time in their final moments in life.
The shocks and jumps you get when a spook does something really eerie or causes some emotional or physical damage on people who are just trying to figure out what the hell is going on is always a joy for any horror aficionado.
Unfortunately, you get none of that in Haunted Echoes.
The poor Dykstras. Their daughter is kidnapped and killed by a local twenty-something who is so grief stricken by the whole ordeal kills himself in his prison cell. Devastated by the loss of their only child, Laura Dykstra (Sean Young) and Guy Dykstra (David Starzyk) decide that what better time than to move into a bigger, more expensive house. Luckily, they find an old Victorian style home to move their things and in short order are living the dream.
The only problem is that as soon as they move in, both begin to witness strange things happening: A creepy figure crawling out of the tub, letters written on the walls and old movies of their daughter playing on their DVD player at all hours of the night. Plus, someone keeps calling some poor dude’s house harassing him over and over again.
The Dykstra’s begin to think the person that was accused of killing their daughter really didn’t do it and all of these hauntings are somehow pointing them in the right direction of the real killer. Or are they? In the end, it simply doesn’t matter because the acting is so bad, the special effects über lame and the plot is so all over the map that you simply don’t care. There’s nothing that has you cheering for these people or hoping that the real killer is found and brought to justice. In fact, you hope that the ghost turns nasty toward them so you can stop watching the film.
Add to this:
⢠Ketchup on the cheek.
⢠The lamest nonsensical séance maybe put on film.
⢠A weak paint job.
⢠Dirty hands in the tub.
⢠Overacting set on maximum.
⢠Wearing the same non-bra outfit in two different, separate scenes.
⢠Cop meeting in the break room.
⢠Cat in the microwave.
⢠Nuked cat in a shoebox.
⢠Cat bones in the floorboard.
⢠Skeleton in the garden.
⢠Skull rolling down the stairs.
⢠Cat fight at the OK Corral.
As a result, you have one hell of a funny ghost comedy because you end up laughing your ass off. That’s not good because Haunted Echoes wasn’t designed to be a comedy.
Sean Young, who must be seriously hard up at this point, is downright terrible. She rarely, if ever, changes her expression throughout the film regardless of whether a creepy hand is emerging from the tub, she think she finds her daughter’s real killer or something odd gets painted on a wall.
Juliet Landau is completely wasted as the friend of the Dykstras as they seem to have her only appear when they need something either acted well or someone’s facial expression to actually change during the events that are happening.
And with the amount of cats that are killed and tortured in the film, those that greenlit the film must really be dog lovers.
