Echoes of Fear [DVD]

Product Information

Echoes of Fear opens with an elderly man (Norman Zeller – Malignant) taking a shower, who promptly dies in mysterious circumstances. His granddaughter Alisa (Trista Robinson – Purgatory Road, The Human Race) arrives to get the place ready to sell on, which involves her mostly living there on her own while she sorts her grandfather’s affairs, with occasional visits from boyfriend Brandon (Paul Chirico – Marry Me, Escape the Night) and best friend Steph (Hannah Race – Billy and the Bandit, So You Wanna Make a Movie) to help her out. She begins to suspect things are not entirely as they seem with the house and with what she knows about the man her grandfather seemed to be. The deeper she digs, the darker and more dangerous things become, eventually culminating in an all out battle for her life. Arriving after generating a lot of good word of mouth on the festival circuit, Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley’s Indy US horror offers the discerning horror hound an intriguing, well-made, gloriously slow-burn take on the age-old haunted house genre, not using the (to me anyway) increasingly annoying jump-cuts to generate fright (I don’t think they do, startling is not the same as creating terror or fright), but by doing it the correct way, taking time to build atmosphere, slowly building up events and adding in some red herrings, to draw the viewer deeply into the film. Echoes of Fear premiered at the 18th annual Shriekfest Horror Festival, the longest running horror festival in Los Angeles, where it won Best Supernatural Horror Feature. Since then, the film has won six Best Feature Awards at other festivals. A young woman called Alysa (played by Trista Robinson, who has the voice of a young child, this was pretty annoying!) inherits her late grandfather's large house. She moves in with a view to selling it but almost immediately spooky things start to happen, including a creepy cookie jar, the top of which moves by itself. About half an hour we and we get our first supernatural jump scare, I'm man enough to admit this and the following one did work on me. However, they soon became ineffective. What appealed to me about this movie is that the ghosts are only half the horror, in fact if anything they are the goods guys, despite looking "scary". The real horror is much more real, as her best friend says "Whatever this is it's way beyond ghosts!". The film has a fairly small cast which includes an elderly man living next door who is a chain smoker despite being attached to a portable oxygen tank, and a delightful pet mouse, rightfully given a credit (Twikie and Twixie).

And yes, Echoes of Fear is terrifying. The husband and wife duo of Brian Avenet-Bradley and Laurence Avenet-Bradley manage to make this film scary, even though they’re playing with the tropes of the genre. Just because they’re subverting the cliches of the genre doesn’t mean they can’t still use them to generate scares, and do so very successfully! I know jump-scares tend to be something people either love or hate. It’s become such a horror trope that you’ll see the jump-scares coming a mile away. Well, not when it comes to Echoes of Fear. Directed by the team of Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley - and filmed in the house that they live in - Echoes of Fear follows Alysa, who has inherited her grandfather's home. As she puts it up for sale, she starts to sense that there's a presence in the home that is not from our world. After the plot is laid down, there is considerable suspense and tension throughout. Is she being watched? Is she safe? Will she die? Etcetera The tension in Echoes of Fear builds slowly but steadily. Every time Alysa thinks she's found a rational explanation for the strange events in the house, another unnerving occurrence happens. The plot twists and turns, keeping the audience guessing about what's really going on.

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Despite its slow start, Echoes of Fear is a captivating film that is sure to appeal to horror fans. The movie's ending is satisfying and unexpected, tying up all the loose ends and leaving the viewer with a sense of closure. The final shot of the movie is both beautiful and haunting, perfectly capturing the eerie tone of the entire film. Stars: Trista Robinson, Hannah Race, Paul Chirico, Marshal Hilton, Elif Savas, Danilo Di Julio, Norman Zeller | Written by Brian Avenet-Bradley | Directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley, Laurence Avenet-Bradley

Echoes of Fear is a 2018 horror-thriller directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley and starring Trista Robinson, Hannah Race, and Paul Chirico. The film follows the story of Alysa, a young woman who inherits her grandfather's dilapidated home in Los Angeles after his death. Alysa and her boyfriend, Steph, move into the house to take care of it and start fixing it up, but strange things begin to happen almost immediately. This horror movie has already won several film festival awards for a reason! Watch it and you’ll understand why. The geography of the house is always unclear though making it often difficult to know where you are and hard to follow the action, which is especially distracting when the house and its layout and secrets are so important to the story. Time can be similarly abstract, with a jump of a week happening in one cut and not made reference to at all – leaving you wondering why a character who only visits at the weekend is suddenly there again, what has happened and if you’ve missed something. Atrocious acting aside, Echoes of Fear does have flourishes of creativity in its horror elements. The timing of scares is noticeably offbeat and there’s some moments of misdirection involving its demonic creature which admittedly caught me of guard. Without giving any spoilers, there are some real-life stories which seem to have inspired its main narrative which, like any true-crime, are scarier than anything found within the film. Its cinematography is occasionally inventive too, employing plenty of shadow work and rapid montages to invoke a shiver or two. Echoes of Fear is released in the UK on the 20th of July to rent and buy digitally and on DVD on the 3rd of August

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You see, there’s a reason why all of us have been put here on this crazy planet. The first step is finding out what that reason is. The second step is embracing it.” It also stars Marshal Hilton playing the neighbour, David. He also starred in one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen – Astro, playing the part of space-elf researching Alexander Biggs. But here? Here his performance is worthy of plaudits. He’s great to watch in this and I could even almost forgive him for being in Astro. Almost.

Echoes of Fear embarks on a national theatrical release beginning this week in Los Angeles and then goes on to other cities in the United States during its month-long run. Catch it in a major city near you, but do NOT go see this spellbinding tale of the supernatural without a friend. Throughout the movie, Trista Robinson's performance as Alysa is impressive. She perfectly conveys the character's fear, confusion, and vulnerability. Hannah Race, who plays Alysa's bubbly best friend, also delivers a strong performance, adding some much-needed moments of levity to the otherwise tense film. Paul Chirico, who plays Steph, Alysa's boyfriend, is a bit of a weak link, but his character's naivety and skepticism are understandable in the circumstances. No, Echoes of Fear has developed its own perfectly-timed moments of horror. A lot of this is due to brilliant cinematography and the perfect reactions of its cast. But she is right, there is something wrong with this place, and not just a potential squatter. It starts slowly, finding something in a different place from where she left it, wondering if she just imagined it, noises that may just be the sounds of an old house or maybe something more. Finding items from a squatter in a concealed area should solve that mystery, but no, that’s not the main cause of the noises and unease. The camera follows Alisa through both big, open spaces, like the high-ceilinged, broad living room to the tight confines of the crawlspace under the house. While you’d expect the latter to create a nice, claustrophobic fear, which it does, the Avenet-Bradleys also manage to craft that fear even in the more open, well-lit spaces, making Alisa seem vulnerable to something that could come from anywhere around her. Even minimalist moves like the camera looking out of a brightly lit bedroom into a dark hallway beyond the open door contrive to create a creeping unease – such a simple move but so effective (it reminded me of Dyson and Nyman’s Ghost Stories, which took a dark staircase in an ordinary suburban home and also made it creepingly terrifying through little more than slow camera moves and darkness and tension).

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Written and directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley ( Malignant ), and co-directed by Laurence Avenet-Bradley ( Big Red: The Ghost of Floyd County Prison ), Echoes of Fear is released in the UK on the 20th of July to rent and buy digitally and on DVD on the 3rd of August. Some houses aren’t worth the soil they are built upon. Sometimes they are only money pits, gobbling up every bit of resource known to get them into a sellable state. Other times, they provide the best of places for memories to occur. And then, when atrocities occur within their walls, there are houses that become Echoes of Fear. Such is the case for the inherited house at the center of directors Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley’s acclaimed excursion into fear.