In the film, telephone worker Tom Witzky (Bacon) begins experiencing a series of frightening visions after being hypnotized by his sister-in law, Lisa (Douglas).

When Tom and Maggie confront her and with a police officer now present, Debbie angrily questions them about her sister Samantha, explaining that she had an intellectual disability, with the mental capacity of an eight-year-old and thus a child's tendency to trust strangers.

While Maggie and Jake attend her grandmother's wake at a relative's house, Tom inadvertently knocks down a shoddy brick wall in the basement and discovers Samantha's mummified remains.

Koepp had decided he wanted his next project to be a horror film;[4] his love for the screen-adapted Duel (1971), as well as Matheson's work on The Twilight Zone (1959), contributed to his decision to purchase a copy of A Stir of Echoes from a used bookstore.

Matheson, who expressed admiration for Koepp's directorial debut film The Trigger Effect (1996), responded positively to his draft and gave him his approval: "I'm sure he's done a good job of it.

[4] Koepp shot the hypnosis scene, in which Bacon's character envisions himself in a theater and everything apart from the projection screen is painted black, as it was written in Matheson's book.

")[13] Roger Ebert wrote that Bacon "stars in one of his best performances" and that "Koepp's screenplay dovetails the supernatural stuff with developments among the neighbors which are, wisely, more sad and tragic than sensational.

"[17] Empire, giving the film 4 out of 5 stars ("Excellent") wrote that "this quietly creepy adaptation of a Richard Matheson novel" was "[o]vershadowed at the American box office by The Sixth Sense" and adds, "There are neat camera tricks - the spook moves at a slightly different film speed to the living - and a couple of great bad dream moments, but the real skill Koepp shows is that he grounds the scary stuff in a believable reality and delivers a ghost story that doesn't lose its grip after the spirits have unambiguously been made manifest.

"[12] The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote that "the film offers above-average occult entertainment" with Bacon's "most believable, heart-wrenching and charismatic lead performance in many years.

"[13] The Baltimore Sun wrote, "Koepp and director of photography Fred Murphy have created some dazzling in-camera special effects, especially the ingenious idea of filming the story's ghost at a slow speed, six frames per second, giving the being a strange, otherworldly way of moving.

"[15] The Miami Herald reviewer wrote, "A good deal of effort was invested in setting up an atmosphere of mystery and dread: Stir of Echoes is a scream-out-loud movie, upsetting and deliriously effective.

Problem is, Koepp relies almost entirely on the isolated shocking images, ignoring the human element at the center in favor of digitalized special effects and rapid-fire editing.

[20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore during opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "B" on a scale ranging from A+ to F.[21] The original motion picture soundtrack album for Stir of Echoes was released by Nettwerk America on September 14, 1999.