Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming (2007)

"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

During the invasion of Iraq, the National Guard Commander Ted Cogan (Rob Lowe) sees a van speeding up against his site without respecting the warning plates. He orders his men to fire, and later he discovers that in the van there was an Iraqi family. He tries to save a young girl from the fire, but the vehicle explodes and his group is attacked; he enters in coma severely wounded and his friend and neighbor dies. When Ted recovers, he returns home to meet his family, but he is increasingly haunted by ghosts of dead people, premonitions and guilty complex for the death of the innocent family. He seeks medical support but his financial situation does not allow him to pay for a treatment and the government denies helping him. However, one ghost gives the name of Jake Witzky (Zachary Bennett), who tells him to find out what the spirit demands from him. When his son Max (Ben Lewis) is severely wounded in a car crash where his girlfriend Sammi (Tatiana Maslany) and their friend Luke (Shawn Roberts) die, Ted discovers the wish of justice of the tormented soul and he tries to do the right thing.The ghost story "Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming" is a surprisingly good and dramatic tale of prejudice and justice. Rob Lowe gives a solid performance in the role of a man that feels the effects of a senseless invasion, earning a medal but no financial or medical support in his homecoming, living with the remorse for a wrong order in a moment of stress in a foreign and hostile country. The bigotry of his neighbors upsets him until his final discovery of the despicable act of his son and his friends. This supernatural story is certainly polemic for many, but I liked it, specially the unexpected twist with the true reason for the spirit's revenge. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Ecos do Além 2" ("Echoes from Beyond 2")

In "Stir Of Echoes", the always watchable Kevin Bacon played a man who began to see restless spirits after being hypnotised at a party and subsequently uncovered a terrible crime. "Stir Of Echoes: The Homecoming" utilises this premise and gives it a twist. Our main character here is U.S Patrol Captain Ted Cogan who is forced to give the order which leads to the death of a family in Iraq. He is also wounded and falls into a coma which - much like the hypnosis from the first movie - turns him into a 'receiver', able to see the ghosts around him."Stir Of Echoes: The Homecoming" uses the horror genre to comment on the situation in Iraq and its effect on Americans back home. For example, early in the story we have a party in which one of Cogan's neighbours makes a racist joke which results in laughter from some and an outburst of anger from Cogan. It's an interesting idea but, unfortunately, the script is not quite strong enough to quite carry it off. There's a good idea at work here but the movie comes off as far too preachy in places for its own good.The horror aspects are well done and very interesting. As the ghosts haunting Cogan become more frustrated and aggressive, their attacks become increasingly more violent. Much like Bacon's character in the first movie, Cogan also experiences various hallucinations related to future events. I certainly can't fault the work of director Ernie Barbarish who manages to stretch a small budget out so the movie looks great.If I had to point out the areas where this movie fails, the most obvious area is the casting of Rob Lowe as Cogan. It would be hard for any actor to follow Kevin Bacon but Lowe appears to sleepwalk through most of the movie. There are moments when you glimpse him come alive but, for the most part, he seems to be there just to pick up his money which is a shame. The second failing of the movie comes with its conclusion which simply didn't sit right with me at all.Strangely, Bacon's son from the original "Stir Of Echoes" appears in a cameo role in this movie but has been greatly aged which suggests that the sequel takes place many years later. Although it was a nice way to tie the two movies together, this decision ultimately baffled me.Despite its flaws, its still a watchable movie. If you enjoyed the first movie, then you might still enjoy "Stir Of Echoes: The Homecoming" if you can forgive its sledgehammer approach to racism and the current situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, if you've seen the first movie then you'll also probably realise where the story is going due to certain similarities in its plot. Is it worth purchasing on DVD? No. Is it worth a rental? Well, if you like supernatural horror movies then there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

This is why people hate sequels. Rob Lowes is a good actor. He gets involved in these movies that just suck… like this one. The ghost in this lame sequel is trying to tell him something. Spoiler; it's telling him that his son along with friends killed him because they thought he was an Arab that hated America… based of course on his rude demeanor and tone towards American soldiers, easy mistake.This movie was made by obvious liberals because a conservative republican would be pleased that an American stuck up for their country and said hey, you want to mess with my land and talk crap about our soldiers… well F-you. They should make a movie praising Americans for sticking up for themselves for once instead of preachy junk like this. The a-hole gets killed and then has the audacity to haunt the boy's father, (Lowe). At the end his son goes to jail and his wife gets shot and killed, while Lowes character seems to be placed into an asylum. Gee nice message thrown in my face to be tolerant of others. F uck tolerance! Whatever happened to America being home of the brave?By the way... I'm not some racist redneck, I hate everyone equally