A young woman called Alysa (played by Trista Robinson, who has the voice of a young child, this was pretty annoying!) inherits her late grandfather's large house. She moves in with a view to selling it but almost immediately spooky things start to happen, including a creepy cookie jar, the top of which moves by itself. About half an hour we and we get our first supernatural jump scare, I'm man enough to admit this and the following one did work on me. However, they soon became ineffective. What appealed to me about this movie is that the ghosts are only half the horror, in fact if anything they are the goods guys, despite looking "scary". The real horror is much more real, as her best friend says "Whatever this is it's way beyond ghosts!". The film has a fairly small cast which includes an elderly man living next door who is a chain smoker despite being attached to a portable oxygen tank, and a delightful pet mouse, rightfully given a credit (Twikie and Twixie). I should also mention that even when I didn’t like the character of Alisa, I still liked her friend, Steph. The character of Steph is played by Hannah Race who also did a brilliant job throughout the movie. This is the first feature film for Hannah Race, but hopefully, far from the last. Echoes of Fear embarks on a national theatrical release beginning this week in Los Angeles and then goes on to other cities in the United States during its month-long run. Catch it in a major city near you, but do NOT go see this spellbinding tale of the supernatural without a friend. Stars: Trista Robinson, Hannah Race, Paul Chirico, Marshal Hilton, Elif Savas, Danilo Di Julio, Norman Zeller | Written by Brian Avenet-Bradley | Directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley, Laurence Avenet-Bradley

For the record, no, there are no zombies in Echoes of Fear. This is not that kind of horror movie. It is, however, a horror-mystery and while you’ll no doubt have fun trying to figure out what’s going on, you probably won’t guess all of it. After the plot is laid down, there is considerable suspense and tension throughout. Is she being watched? Is she safe? Will she die? Etcetera You see, there’s a reason why all of us have been put here on this crazy planet. The first step is finding out what that reason is. The second step is embracing it.” Echoes of Fear opens with an elderly man (Norman Zeller – Malignant) taking a shower, who promptly dies in mysterious circumstances. His granddaughter Alisa (Trista Robinson – Purgatory Road, The Human Race) arrives to get the place ready to sell on, which involves her mostly living there on her own while she sorts her grandfather’s affairs, with occasional visits from boyfriend Brandon (Paul Chirico – Marry Me, Escape the Night) and best friend Steph (Hannah Race – Billy and the Bandit, So You Wanna Make a Movie) to help her out. She begins to suspect things are not entirely as they seem with the house and with what she knows about the man her grandfather seemed to be. The deeper she digs, the darker and more dangerous things become, eventually culminating in an all out battle for her life.

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Written and directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley ( Malignant ), and co-directed by Laurence Avenet-Bradley ( Big Red: The Ghost of Floyd County Prison ), Echoes of Fear is released in the UK on the 20th of July to rent and buy digitally and on DVD on the 3rd of August. Yes, there is some unavoidable cliche in this type of storyline, but my advice is to go with the flow. Most people who like suspense will enjoy this movie because there are enough scare scenes and unknowns to keep it interesting. The scares result from the tension and the unknowns, not because of anything explicit or gory. Despite its slow start, Echoes of Fear is a captivating film that is sure to appeal to horror fans. The movie's ending is satisfying and unexpected, tying up all the loose ends and leaving the viewer with a sense of closure. The final shot of the movie is both beautiful and haunting, perfectly capturing the eerie tone of the entire film. The story, at its core is a great- conceptually. It takes the basics of a creepy, haunted house tale and layers in a couple of complexities that heightens the interest level. . For most of what "Echoes Of Fear" is, it is really chilling, dark and well directed. There is some moments when expositional stuff feels forced. At times line delivery weakens story momentum.

One of the aspects of Echoes of Fear that sets it apart from other horror films is the focus on practical effects. Rather than relying on CGI, the movie uses old-school techniques like puppetry and makeup to create its scares. This approach gives the movie a classic horror feel and makes the creepy moments even more effective. When Echoes of Fear first began, I didn’t expect much more than a decent low-budget movie. By the halfway mark, I was couped up in the corner of my couch while holding a pillow for safety. Did I end up loving Echoes of Fear? Oh hell yeah! Don’t let the slow beginning and (annoyingly) naive lead character fool you.Let’s be honest, haunted house movies are ten-a-penny. They have been since the dawn of horror film making. So you need to have a solid idea for one if you set out to make a haunted house film today. Thankfully, despite a shaky, somewhat stereotypical, opening it turns out Echoes of Fear has a GREAT idea behind its story… One that, once you’ve seen the film, gives an all-new, deeper, meaning to what is – at first – a generic horror title. This is another film where to give too much away would be to do the film a disservice, because after all this the recommendation is going to be that this is a film worth seeing. It’s uneven as hell, the opening far too slow, but it redeems itself by the end, presenting a horror film that doesn’t just follow the same old tropes (other than the jump scares) and instead tries to do something new. As with horror game Maid of Sker, this is an ambitious but flawed product, but unlike the game, which didn’t do enough to truly stand out in the field of stealth horror, this film does. The inconsistency is only barely noticeable, and for the most part the film is strong. The acting is good, at times great. The characters are developed and the cast never take them too far into 'theatrics'. It is obvious this is ultra indie work, still Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley create a cool, atmospheric thriller. The geography of the house is always unclear though making it often difficult to know where you are and hard to follow the action, which is especially distracting when the house and its layout and secrets are so important to the story. Time can be similarly abstract, with a jump of a week happening in one cut and not made reference to at all – leaving you wondering why a character who only visits at the weekend is suddenly there again, what has happened and if you’ve missed something.

How's the movie though? Damn good! It takes a bit of time to get going, but once it does -- BAM! I jumped out of my seat a few times in some truly short's sh---ing moments. And, far as I can tell, all the scares were staged in camera. There was no CGI on display here.Arriving after generating a lot of good word of mouth on the festival circuit, Brian and Laurence Avenet-Bradley’s Indy US horror offers the discerning horror hound an intriguing, well-made, gloriously slow-burn take on the age-old haunted house genre, not using the (to me anyway) increasingly annoying jump-cuts to generate fright (I don’t think they do, startling is not the same as creating terror or fright), but by doing it the correct way, taking time to build atmosphere, slowly building up events and adding in some red herrings, to draw the viewer deeply into the film.