10. One Of The Best Degrees Of Kevin Bacon - Stir of Echoes
In addition to adding a pivotal rung to the long-standing party game, Mathesons original 1958 novel Stir of Echoes resulted in a film that provided Kevin Bacon with arguably one of his finest acting showcases to date. Mathesons tale of a man who awakens from induced hypnosis with the ability to read minds and hear the dead was adapted by David Koepp to function as a low-key ghost story taking place in a working class Chicago suburb. Released within a month of the higher profile The Sixth Sense, Echoes was ignored at the box-office even though its arguably the stronger picture. All of Koepps spook show tactics asidethat baby monitor is seriously creepy and Paint it Black has never been more menacingthe real highlight of Echoes is Bacons slow-burn performance as Chicago telephone lineman Tom Witzky, who gets hypnotized at a party and is suddenly picking up the frequencies of a girl who went missing in the neighborhood long before he and his family arrived. Now, Tom is trying his best not to crack while the sinister secrets of the people hes lived next to for years start rising to the fore and Bacon sinks his teeth into the character doesnt let him go. Matheson crafted his novel as an attempt to scientifically illuminate psychic phenomena and his realistic take on Toms issues proved great material for Koepp and Bacon. A sequence where Tom must gather all of the spirits promptings and dig apart his own home strikes a wonderfully obsessive note, akin to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Its a great turn that we likely wouldnt have without Mathesons strong source material.