The Echo Game isn’t all that good, especially not in comparison to other acclaimed films. However, it is one of the 50 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen. As someone who keep up with obscure films, this ranking was highly unexpected. But after watching The Echo Game, the only unexplained phenomenon I found was the praise ‘experts’ had given it, which was somewhat errant.
The movie starts with, Rachel (the main character) who is relentlessly chased by an unidentified organization that is clearly hell-bent on her murder. After simultaneous attempts to murder her, she unknowingly gets investigated. This time, the mysterious organization finds Rachel’s ex, April. So far, she has been found to have one child, a 10-year-old daughter who loves her to bits. However, in Rachel’s works, figures begin to govern the illusions. April also seems to experience delusions, and in fact, believes Rachel has passed away ages ago. To make matters creepier, Sarah, April’s daughter, starts showing some erratic behavior and talks about having a non-imaginary friend.
The Echo Game employs a casual treatment of its leads which stands out as its best feature. There are certain expectations of exploitation, titillation, and a form of mild homophobia from a horror film with a lesbian couple. March and Casey’s relationship is not some form of exploitation and nothing that needs to be hyperbolized as a moral or character flaw. They are instead deeply devoted parents of their children. The film does not center around these characters’ sexuality, which makes it a prime example of having an uncommon plot for WLW characters and couples. It is also a powerful win for equality to witness a standard domestic couple’s life being disrupted by a mysterious agency attempting to create psychic toddlers.
The Echo Game is a horror film that has the potential to be great but unfortunately fails to deliver in every single category. Perhaps one of the more disappointing aspects of the film is how so much of its runtime is wasted on uninteresting and poorly written side plots. It struggles to include horror aspects as April deals with relationship problems. Instead of being focused on the main story, The Echo Game dedicates a lot of time to her character arc. This doesn’t make any sense, since The Echo Game is about a confidential agency that goes around hunting down children they executed mind experiments on. That’s incredible in itself! Yet again, the movie fails to deliver. The whole mind control aspect is severely downplayed, most likely due to budgeting or bad focus.
The directing in The Echo Game is bizarre considering how normal it is. Echo Game looks like it came out of an early 2000s supernatural TV series such as Ghost Whisperer, Medium, or Tru Calling. Its resemblance to an actual TV episode demonstrates that it is better directed than would have been expected from the quality of its script. It’s evident that there is a level of directorial precision and certainty that is lacking in similar low-budget films. What is lacking however is any kind of creative risk or originality. Even by television directing standards, it is mediocre. The same year that The Echo Game premiered, another highly acclaimed television series called Fringe was released. It tackles similar subjects of psychic experiments conducted on children but has better horror elements, and stronger, more ambitious directing. It’s not as gay, but still, you ought to watch Fringe.
I wanted to enjoy The Echo Game. There is a committed, non-objectified lesbian couple who gets pulled into a psychic conspiracy I want to support this horror movie. But the execution of the ideas is just not done well. There are not enough horror elements, the acting is bad across the board and the ending psychic fight scene is ridiculous. Somewhere in here is a good movie or, more likely, a good TV series. It just wasn’t the one that actually existed.
To watch more movies visit Fmovies
Also Watch for more movies like:
