"Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming" is a mildly disappointing but decent sequel.
**SPOILERS**
Injured in battle, Ted Cogan, (Rob Lowe) returns home from the war in Iraq and immediately puts off wife Molly, (Marnie McPhail) and son Max, (Ben Lewis) by his militaristic attitude. The more time he spends at home, the more he's tormented by nightmarish visions and dreams about an incident during the war involving a small girl. As they get more frequent in terms of frequency and intensity, he is determined to find out the cause of the attacks. When his family become targets, he finds that the true cause of the attacks is based around an similar incident between his family and that the ghost of that incident, rather than the one from the War, is intent on hurting him and he must stop it before it hurts more than just his family.
The Good News: This here was decent enough when it counted. The main factor with this one is the ghostly visions in here being down-right creepy at times. Mixed along with the hallucinations and the sightings, these here are the highlight of the film with ease. From the encounter in the kitchen, the burnt ghost reaching out for him that comes from out-of-nowhere scoring a massive shock. The encounter with the widow is just as fantastic, being even better with the added bonus of the shocking, brutal kill to wrap it all in a great package. There's even more fantastic, fun encounters in here, with the Veteran's Hospital series standing out nicely with it's myriad of different sequences and tense moments. These are mostly helped out by the fact that the ghosts in here look fantastic, with the burnt flesh, distorted features, smoldering heaps of flesh and tattered clothes make for tons of great scenes with the ghosts. This one also has a fairly impressive action scene that kicks the film off, as the different traps, shootout and massive explosions that go off in the sequence are a lot of fun and definitely do a lot to make the film rather enjoyable. The last plus here is the fact that there's some really nice blood and gore in here, even if not all of them are deaths. From the views of the burnt corpses, which look suitably gruesome and graphic, there's a gunshot that blows half the victim's head off, one has words burned into their arm with a lighter, one shows the scars of being beaten and pummeled with a tire-iron and another couple are set graphically set on fire, complete with full-body burns. These here are the film's only real good points.
The Bad News: There was a couple flaws with this one that managed to hold it down. One of the biggest issue here is that the film manages to get heavily bogged down in politics and world events, especially towards the end. Despite it being something that might turn some off on sheer principle, the fact that it consistently does it by beating us over the head about the War and it's affects on those not directly involved make for some incredibly tough and irritating viewing at times. The severity of how it's beaten down is really where it gets it's really aggravating, because it drops the ghost angle to throw in the angle with the citizen seeking retribution for the political-based attack. These are almost as bad as the early scenes of the family drama and tension, which isn't that good and does the exact same thing, serve no purpose being there and have a bunch of rather irritating factors about them that can easily be left out without any consequences. These scenes are just aggravating to sit through and don't belong in the film. The film also manages to score a couple of rather lame ghost attacks as well, some of which don't even make sense. The entire encounter at the psychic's hotel makes no sense, there's the malfunctioning appliances that showcases an unmentioned-and-unnecessary power of moving objects around when it should really be about their interaction with each other and in effect really neutering the whole thing. The last flaw here is the entire middle segment, which features no ghost action at all. Mixed between the need to deliver the back-story about the events as they're going on, the most irritating elements of the family-drama and the first hints of the political tension, it has a lot of down-time and really shouldn't be. All told, these are the film's flaws.
The Final Verdict: While it's not entirely perfect, it's good enough to good parts to warrant a look at the very least. Really only recommended to those who liked the original or are interested in this who can overlook the flaws, while those who are turned off by the flaws are advised to seek caution with this one.
Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence
**SPOILERS**
Injured in battle, Ted Cogan, (Rob Lowe) returns home from the war in Iraq and immediately puts off wife Molly, (Marnie McPhail) and son Max, (Ben Lewis) by his militaristic attitude. The more time he spends at home, the more he's tormented by nightmarish visions and dreams about an incident during the war involving a small girl. As they get more frequent in terms of frequency and intensity, he is determined to find out the cause of the attacks. When his family become targets, he finds that the true cause of the attacks is based around an similar incident between his family and that the ghost of that incident, rather than the one from the War, is intent on hurting him and he must stop it before it hurts more than just his family.
The Good News: This here was decent enough when it counted. The main factor with this one is the ghostly visions in here being down-right creepy at times. Mixed along with the hallucinations and the sightings, these here are the highlight of the film with ease. From the encounter in the kitchen, the burnt ghost reaching out for him that comes from out-of-nowhere scoring a massive shock. The encounter with the widow is just as fantastic, being even better with the added bonus of the shocking, brutal kill to wrap it all in a great package. There's even more fantastic, fun encounters in here, with the Veteran's Hospital series standing out nicely with it's myriad of different sequences and tense moments. These are mostly helped out by the fact that the ghosts in here look fantastic, with the burnt flesh, distorted features, smoldering heaps of flesh and tattered clothes make for tons of great scenes with the ghosts. This one also has a fairly impressive action scene that kicks the film off, as the different traps, shootout and massive explosions that go off in the sequence are a lot of fun and definitely do a lot to make the film rather enjoyable. The last plus here is the fact that there's some really nice blood and gore in here, even if not all of them are deaths. From the views of the burnt corpses, which look suitably gruesome and graphic, there's a gunshot that blows half the victim's head off, one has words burned into their arm with a lighter, one shows the scars of being beaten and pummeled with a tire-iron and another couple are set graphically set on fire, complete with full-body burns. These here are the film's only real good points.
The Bad News: There was a couple flaws with this one that managed to hold it down. One of the biggest issue here is that the film manages to get heavily bogged down in politics and world events, especially towards the end. Despite it being something that might turn some off on sheer principle, the fact that it consistently does it by beating us over the head about the War and it's affects on those not directly involved make for some incredibly tough and irritating viewing at times. The severity of how it's beaten down is really where it gets it's really aggravating, because it drops the ghost angle to throw in the angle with the citizen seeking retribution for the political-based attack. These are almost as bad as the early scenes of the family drama and tension, which isn't that good and does the exact same thing, serve no purpose being there and have a bunch of rather irritating factors about them that can easily be left out without any consequences. These scenes are just aggravating to sit through and don't belong in the film. The film also manages to score a couple of rather lame ghost attacks as well, some of which don't even make sense. The entire encounter at the psychic's hotel makes no sense, there's the malfunctioning appliances that showcases an unmentioned-and-unnecessary power of moving objects around when it should really be about their interaction with each other and in effect really neutering the whole thing. The last flaw here is the entire middle segment, which features no ghost action at all. Mixed between the need to deliver the back-story about the events as they're going on, the most irritating elements of the family-drama and the first hints of the political tension, it has a lot of down-time and really shouldn't be. All told, these are the film's flaws.
The Final Verdict: While it's not entirely perfect, it's good enough to good parts to warrant a look at the very least. Really only recommended to those who liked the original or are interested in this who can overlook the flaws, while those who are turned off by the flaws are advised to seek caution with this one.
Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence