LOS ANGELES, California ? What are online critics saying about Yam Laranas? ?The Echo? since he premiered this American remake of ?Sigaw? at the 12th Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Canada last week?

So far, the Internet film reviewers, whose importance is growing, especially in getting the word out about horror/thriller genre movies, are sounding very enthusiastic. The words used by critics to sum up their verdict on the movie, which stars Jesse Bradford, the Philippines? Iza Calzado (who reprises her role), Amelia Warner, Kevin Durand, Louise Linton, Carlos Leon and Pruitt Taylor Vince, range from ?beautiful? very solid? to ?cleverly done.?

Excerpts

Following are excerpts from some of the posted reviews:

Jay Seaver, efilmcritic.com: ?Apparently, the quest [for] Asian horror films to remake has now expanded?to the Philippines, where Yam Laranas?s ?Sigaw? was a hit and did fairly well on the festival circuit. The good news about this one is that Laranas transplanted it to New York himself, and appears to have done a pretty good job of making this second version worth the effort.

??The Echo? plays with similar themes as the ?The Grudge? movies, although Laranas made ?Sigaw? without knowing what Takashi Shimizu was doing in Japan at the time. The scare scenes are nicely done, with ghosts following Bobby away from the haunted space so that they can show up at any moment, but not being over-the-top in how they manifest. The revelation of just how much is supernatural is cleverly done, and Laranas is also very cognizant that ghosts are far from the only frightening thing in the movie: his portrayal of domestic violence is just as disquieting.

?It?s all anchored by a surprisingly good performance by Jesse Bradford? The rest of the cast is good, too ? decent actors... well-suited to their roles, but Bradford is the one that grabs the audience.?

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Johnny Butane, dreadcentral.com: ?Yam Laranas understood that for an American remake... to work, there would need to be some changes. Having never seen the original, I?m not sure how much was changed, but I can say that ?The Echo? never suffers from what the worst of those other Asian remakes do: Give you the feeling that you?re watching an Asian film with an English-speaking cast. ?The Echo? is very much its own movie with its own style and pacing and for that reason alone, I?m glad that Laranas was able to have a second chance.

?First and foremost, ?The Echo? is a beautiful film. You can tell that Yam, a cinematographer himself though he didn?t shoot this, put a lot of thought into every shot, every interior, every creeping, crawling camera movement; it all comes together wonderfully to add a thick tension to the proceedings, which in a film that is as deliberately paced as ?The Echo,? is incredibly important to keep the audience.

? ?The Echo??(has) amazing production design, drips with atmosphere and tension like I?ve not seen in the Asian remakes since the trend first started. While the story and its resolution do have some issues, ?The Echo? is deeper than just the plot, thanks to the way it was designed and executed??The Echo? is a very solid movie and hopefully only the beginning of what Mr. Laranas has to show us.?