Echoes (2018) Movie Review (Short Film)

Greetings valued Dan's Movie Report readers. A couple of years back I reviewed Kenneth Mader's Displacement. The mind bending near future sci-fi drama blurred the lines for genre and tone, essentially launching the career of the fantastic actress Courtney Hope. Fast forward to 2018, Mr Mader is back with a hard hitting psychological terror short entitled Echos. The 23 minute short is long enough to tell a story but short enough to comfortably watch and see a possible expansion of the concept. A teenager who is haunted by past memories, serves as the background, young actresses Cameron Crates and Campbell Crates exude real confidence considering their youthfulness.

Echoes is about the atmosphere and mood more than action and flash. Trust me, this is a good thing. The cool thing about the two Kenneth Mader films I have reviewed, they force the viewers to ponder the possibilities and plot twists. In Echoes I see a future feature film or limited mini-series. The haunting imagery, sparse yet poignant dialogue, and characters can easily be expanded to flesh out a much longer film.

Time is taken on lighting, background, and some special ghosting effects, to add to the overall quality of the film. Many times on indie short films corners are cut due to expenses and or shooting time, this can severely hamper their quality. Just because a film is lower budget, no reason the passion and quality should be lacking.

Writer Julie Kimbrill Ishaya and Kenneth Mader provide the story, I am interested to ready and view more of her work as well. Actually seems like her and Kenneth Mader gel in style and ideas. I hope the two of them write a feature film together.

Finally, I am not going to spoil the plot, nor any character development. Echoes is best watched a few times, in fact, the images inside your mind, about the film may change. Breathe deep, check out Echoes, I highly recommend the film, Echoes rates a 8 out of 10.

Check out my 2017 interview with Kenneth Mader:  https://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2017/08/director-kenneth-mader-interview-2017.html

For more information on Kenneth Mader please visit the official Mader Films website! https://maderfilmstudios.wordpress.com/