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/
