Tom Witzky (Bacon) is a generally good blue collar dude living in Chicago with his wife Maggie (Elbe) and hiss young son Jake (Cope). He has aspirations of his band actually going somewhere and feels like his life is a bit too ordinary, which is understandable enough, though he could definitely use some perspective because Maggie is great and he's loved, but the movie isn't really about that. Also, Jake sometimes talks to someone that no one else can see, and the movie very much is about that.
Anyway, his sister in law Lisa (Douglas) hypnotizes him at a party and tells him to be more "open" - and he starts seeing visions. He obsesses over them and soon after learns that Samantha (Morrison), the daughter of an acquaintance, disappeared some months ago. Convinced that it's her ghost he's been seeing, he goes down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what's going on. He has visions that he can't explain, the son (Chalon Williams) of his buddy Frank (Dunn) shoots himself right after Tom sees it all happen, and he has Lisa put him under again to try and stop it...but all that happens is that the ghost commands him to DIG.
He eventually discovers the truth. Adam (Frank's son, the one that shot himself) and Kurt (Steve Rifkin), the son of Tom's landlord Harry (Conor O'Farrell) accidentally killed Samantha and they and their fathers entombed her body in the walls of the house (which Tom is renting from Harry). Tom finds her body and the visions reveal what happened, Kurt and Harry try to kill them, Frank shoots them both, and the Witzky's move the fuck out of that house (though poor Jake is still hearing all the ghosts ever).
This movie is actually really good and it had the extremely bad fortune to come out in 1999, the same year as The Sixth Sense. But it's a solid ghost story, it keeps a tight focus on Tom and his circle, and it has a great sense of place in this Chicago neighborhood. Likewise, we never get beat over the head with it, but there are some themes of history and secrets and how they have weight and resonance, and not every house has literal skeletons in the walls but a lot of them have ghosts. Kevin Bacon does a fantastic job of disintegrating as the obsession with Samantha takes over, but holding on to his life just enough to know that he's fucking things up. Kathryn Elbe, likewise, is playing a woman who clearly loves her family and wants to help, but her husband and son have a language she doesn't speak.
Zachary David Cope, for his part, manages to play a five-year-old with psychic abilities about as well as any little kid could. With child performances you never know if it's the kid acting or the kid mimicking the director, but for what it's worth the kid does read as about five, and he reads normal enough that when he does something spooky it has an impact because he's not spooky all the time.
Illeana Douglas is fun to watch as always and I wish we'd seen more of her character (though, again, I appreciate the focus this movie has). It was cool to see Jennifer Morrison as someone other than Dr. Cameron on House, and it was cool to see Kevin Dunn in a more blue-collar role, because it occurred to me I'm used to seeing him playing lawyers or in movies like Dave.
There are some jump scares that use techniques that are effective, but very familiar now (camera following a character only now ghost on the couch aaah!), but you can't fault a 1999 movie for that. The score isn't anything special, but there's a good musical use of the riff from "Paint It Black" that Tom spends several scenes trying to identify (because Jake has been humming it; it was playing when the boys killed Samantha), and they do a good job of playing it just off enough that it's hard to recognize.
Overall, effective ghost story and a great Halloween movie.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: High
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Superman (2025)
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