The Echo Game Movie Review

After seeing the trailer for this The Echo Game, I was interested in checking out the psychological slasher film. The plot of a psychotic Doctor killing all the ex-patients of a project called the Echo Game, and trying to steal their powers of projection, sounds intriguing, however this movie misses the mark a bit in horror, and as a thriller there is too much explanation, and not enough happening to keep it interesting throughout the 75 minute film.

The acting is very uneven, which drags down the story, and particularly I did not care for any of the evil characters, they just were not scary enough, and their acting was rather stiff. The only way we found out their intentions was through a letter which was sent to the lead actress and read, to explain the story.

Some bright spots in The Echo Game however were the acting of the little girl Sarah played by (Melissa Lee) I thought as a young girl she put forth some emotion and was not as wooden as some of the other cast. Jeannie Bolet who played the wife of lead actress Alisha Seaton did the best she could with the limited material, showing emotion, and actually acting frightened when she was being hunted by Judy Clement's evil character Anne Cassavettes.

Jeannie Bolet as Casey Lin in The Echo Game

I really enjoyed the work of Helga the Hedgehog, the furry little round animal was so cute, and hit her marks crawling around on the little girl's bed, I did like that her credit in the films credit's crawl was before the director of photography. I am sure her diet of insects was doubled that shooting day!

Zelda The Hedgehog in character of Helga The Hedgehog!

Seriously though, for a first feature effort director Brian Feeney had very little resources, only 15 days to shoot the film, and some inexperienced actors. This is a watchable film, with some interesting elements of the slasher-horror genre that with a bit of more time and money, could have been developed further. The Echo Game conceptually was a decent idea, but never quite materialized into the movie it could have been. I rate this film a rent and a 5 out of 10.

The film comes out on DVD September 27th, from MTI Home Video. http://www.mtihomevideo.com

Official site for the film and other projects by the same production company Lead Balloon is http://www.leadballoonpictures.com/ On that site there is quite a few cool short films and other news about The Echo Game