FINALLY.... AND THE FIRST!!!!

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After months and months and months of waiting for this film to land in our shores, and days and days and days of hopeless anticipation due to its delayed play date. Finally, the film that I've been waiting since last year has finally reached its motherland. Indeed, the first Hollywood remake of a Pinoy Blockbuster is truly worth the wait! The Echo totally breaks the curse of Hollywood's Pile of Asian Horror Remake Drecks. I'm so proud to say ! Mabuhay kayo Yam Laranas and Iza Calzado!

FILM SYNOPSIS: Bobby is freshly released from prison after serving some years for killing a man who was trying to rape his girlfriend. He is looking to put together a new living. His old links have either moved away or won’t return his calls, his girl has moved along with her life without him, he is jobless, the only house available to him is the shabby apartment left empty when Bobby’s mother died alone and horrified of invisible voices while Bobby was in jail. Regardless of being frequently delimited by the din and buzz of New York City, Bobby is lonely and alone.



This remake is quiet different from the original film “Sigaw”. The astonishing “door twist” in the Pinoy film is probably one of the biggest plus in that movie. Surprisingly, in this Hollywood remake the twist is missing but I find it cool though. The supernatural twist however is still here and believe me it scares me more! The new premise makes sense to me. I think it is nifty to have an ex-convict playing the lead. Yam Laranas adds a lot of surprising elements in his second echo. For me this remake is scarier than the original. Some scares they put here are new and those scenes really create echoes inside the movie theater. The film right from outset and to its last scratch has this eerie feeling and you can still feel it once you leave cinema. You can really see Yam's touch all over the film. His camera movements are palpable but his magic when it comes to photography is quiet truant. I wish he was the cinematographer too. But still the visuals are still amazing! Oh God what a talented auteur you are Mr. Laranas!!!! I can't wait for his new project this month!



What I really love about The Echo is its spooky setting. Gosh, I just couldn't live in that apartment. It also looks believable that the story happens in New York even if they filmed this entirely in Toronto. They have pictured it perfectly. This film does a magnificent job in building sinister atmosphere. I salute the sound department on that. The stirring echoes across the walls makes me cringe. The whispers makes me shiver. The disturbing issue here really makes me wanna cry. I think that domestic violence is more terrorizing than the actual ghosts we see. We've been seeing a lot of crawling zombies in recent Asian Horror Remakes, don't you worry we won't see those over-the-top funny creatures from hell with Mena pearl cream all over their grisly face. The ghosts here will scare the shit out of you.



Surprisingly, Jesse Bradford is the perfect choice to play Richard Guttierez's original role. He owns this film. This is his film and he looks hot too! I remember reading that Yam asked Bradford to work out and his sexiness is truly scorching on the big screen. Bradford looks scared all the time. He does a marvelous job as Bobby just by looking in his eyes. I'm ambivalent on Amelia Warner. She is a deadringer for Keira Knightley but her acting is an enigma. Carlos Leon manages to steal a scene frankly. Guess who shines so effulgent? Our very own Iza Calzado who has a minor role in this film proves that she can also be a Hollywood Actress! Great job Iza!!! Honestly, I cried watching your painful scene. I shed tears because I was so happy to see you on the limelight. You owned that particular scene and because of you the earth stopped suddenly on me. Hands down to you Iza!!!



The Echo is a very good film. It is a stunning horror film. It is a moving drama film. It is a powerful Hollywood remake of a Pinoy film! Yam Laranas' effort works!!! Congratulations man! Unfortunately, this is going straight to DVD in the US but I don't care at all. They can still watch this nonetheless in their comfy couch. I believe that the pirates are also celebrating right now. Please don't buy the bootleg DVD because the experience inside the dark cinema is truly “once in a lifetime”. Yeah, I can still hear the “echo” right now. It's frightfully scary!

THE ECHO! DO YOU HEAR IT?

Finally, the wait is over! The official teaser trailer has been released.
This film looks promising.
I'm really excited now.
I just can't wait to watch this on its first day opening.
Congratulations Direk Yam Laranas!!!!

THE ECHO
( Hollywood Remake of the Filipino film “Sigaw!” )
Coming Soon.








Here are 2 excellent reviews about the film.



THE ECHO (2008) Movie Review
BeyondHollywood.com
by Lance Curtis

Twitch.com says it is the most “art-house oriented film” to come out of Vertigo Entertainment, the producers behind horror films The Ring, The Grudge, and now The Echo.

The Echo, directed by young filmmaker Yam Laranas, certainly comes as a surprise to even those horror fans who claim to have seen everything. The film manages to be both artistic and terrifying. A rare and strangely powerful combination.

With hardly any special effects, Yam Laranas uses his mastery of lights and shadows to turn the most innocuous everyday objects into the stuff of night terrors. The hallway. The door. The window. The closet. The garbage shoot. Everything looks ominous in the world he’s created out of the simplest camera gestures and shifts in light.

The main character Bobby (played by Jesse Bradford) likewise achieves the most effect with minimalist dialogue and a total absence of typical horror theatrics.

He is an ex-con returning to the apartment of his mother only to find his mother gone and the apartment violently haunted. A simple story simply told.

But absent the usual bells and whistles of a typical horror film, The Echo is deeply, completely frightening, and invokes fears of the kind you take home with you long after you’ve seen the film.

Unlike the countless horror flicks I’ve enjoyed, this story and this ghost, I must say, stayed with me.

For this reason, it deserves its name, The Echo. And it deserves to be seen and heard, not just by few seekers of small cinematic gems lucky enough to find some in Cannes, but by anyone anywhere who loves a great ghost story.

The Echo is many things - both art-house and commercial, both subtle and shocking — but one thing it certainly is — it’s a gem of a ghost story.

Now if only more film distributors in the US were listening…




Todd Brown of Twitchfilm.net

Long time Twitch readers may well remember us talking about Filipino horror film Sigaw a couple years back. Written and directed by Yam Laranas it came late enough in the run of Asian horror films – and in some ways played to the standard conventions of the genre enough - that many overlooked it but Sigaw was such a well crafted little gem of a film that introduced some subtle changes to the genre that I truly believe it is one of the last truly important films to come out of that initial Asian horror boom.

And so I have been tracking with great interest the development of the English language version of the film. Titled The Echo it again puts Laranas at the controls shooting a script adapted from his own by the writing duo of Eric Bernt and Shintaro Shimosawa. The result feels more like a riff on the themes that drove the original film than a straight up remake and it is arguably the most art house oriented picture to come out of Roy Lee’s very commercially minded – in a good way – Vertigo Entertainment.

Jesse Bradford (Flags Of Our Fathers) stars as Bobby, a young man freshly released from prison after serving several years for killing a man who was trying to rape Bobby’s girlfriend (Amelia Warner). Bobby is looking to build a fresh life but where to begin? His old friends have either moved away or won’t return his calls, his girl has moved along with her life without him, he has no job, the only home available to him the shabby apartment left vacant when Bobby’s mother died alone and terrified of unseen voices while Bobby was in prison. Despite being constantly surrounded by the noise and bustle of New York City Bobby is isolated and alone.

But Bobby perseveres. His parole officer finds an employer will to take a risk on him, he slowly begins to reconnect with his girl, and he slowly begins to clear the signs of his mother’s descent into madness from the apartment. What could have happened to her? Why didn’t anyone help? And did the blame lie partially on Bobby himself for leaving her unsupported while in prison?

As the signs of his mother’s paranoia become more clear – a closet with interior deadbolts stocked with tin cans and an accumulation of garbage that makes it clear she locked herself into the confined space for days at a time – Bobby’s guilt begins to grow and become more forceful until his memories and shame begin to take physical shape. He sees her in the mess left behind and begins to be plagued by strange noises coming from the walls and floor of his apartment. But those noises are nothing compared to the sounds of violence coming regularly from the apartment next door, sounds of a young wife and her little girl being beaten by the husband. It’s a horrific situation but one that Bobby feels powerless to do anything about: after all, he’s a freshly paroled convict and the man is a cop.

For fans of the original the point of similarity is obvious: young man in new apartment has to cope with domestic violence next door. And anyone who has ever been in this situation – which I have – can tell you how truly debilitating and horrifying it is before you add the additional supernatural layer that the film(s) bring in. The changes are also quite obvious. In the original film the young man was simply striking out on his own, moving into his first apartment in a bid for independence. Bobby’s criminal history, the death of his mother, and the collapse of his relationship with his girlfriend are all new devices for this version and all add layers of depth that make Bobby a more difficult and rewarding character. That strength does come with a cost in the early going as Bobby is so isolated that a healthy percentage of the film is Bobby on his own with minimal dialogue but Bradford is up to the challenge. Some of the other characters could have used a little bit more work but this is Bobby’s film all the way through and Bradford delivers.

On the technical end both films are far more about building mood and tone than piling on shock after shock and again, Laranas applies his considerable technical skills to that end. The man is a hugely accomplished cinematographer, reluctant to use digital tricks of any sort, and while he has an outside director of photography on The Echo - as opposed to Sigaw, which he shot himself – his fingerprints are all over the visuals and shooting style. Helping greatly in building the tone of the piece is the stellar sound design work that makes it clear throughout that while Bobby may be isolated he can never, ever be truly alone when living in the big city.

The Echo is a moody piece of work, a slow burner rather than a big shocker, and one that will likely prove a little bit difficult to market as a result. Just like its predecessor was not one of the big dogs in the original Asian horror boom this one arrives late enough in the remake game that some of the images have become a little overly familiar but also just like the original it shows that there is still some life in these bones and still stories worth telling.

©2008 Twitchfilm.net

You may visit the director's blog:
http://yamlaranas.blogspot.com/