THERE is a truly scary movie in town. It’s not a horror film in the classic sense of the word but it is horrifying. Echo is the title of this film, written as a remake of the Filipino film Sigaw.

When the film came out in the Metro Manila Film Festival not too long ago, film critics immediately cited its nearest inspiration as a Japanese film—from Ring to The Grudge to Dark Water. Perhaps, on the surface, yes, Sigaw does echo the figures and roots of fear in those films: magical hair, faces of innocence, and an overflowing of emotions and passion that initiate the restlessness of souls.

Upon closer inspection, the film Sigaw exhibits the elements of Japanese gothic narrative: a home-based fear, a blurring between the lines of the human and the nonhuman, and the difficulty to distinguish between the living and those afflicted dead. One never knows really whether the person you meet in the elevator is still of this world or one whose soul has been condemned to roam and trouble the living until the proper resolution is enacted for them.

It is perhaps a privilege for us who have experienced Sigaw that we can articulate our appreciation of The Echo. It is a film scholar’s delight to witness a version even if must be said that one cannot call Sigaw the original and Echo the remake. The two films are different from each other in many crucial aspects. The greatest achievement of Laranas, who directed Sigaw and who cowrote the screenplay with Roy Iglesias, is that here is a handsome film paying tribute to a local product.

One cannot stop people from comparing (critics and fans will) but The Echo is one engaging work that should be able to stand on its own. It does, seeing the reviews of filmgoers in other parts of the world who validate the power of the film: it can and does shock and scare.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times calls Echo a real stunner that “could easily be a cult film.”

The film is about an ex-con, Bobby (Jesse Bradford), who is released and returns to his mother’s place. The building is a prewar structure. Bobby’s mother is said to have kept to herself for some weeks before she was discovered dead. Upon arrival in the house, Bobby keeps hearing strange voices from next door. He sees a pillow with blood stains and the keys of his mother’s piano has fresh blood on them.

Outside the hallway, Bobby sees a little girl who is tinkering with her toy piano. Bobby gets to meet the parents of the girl. The father is a cop and the mother is a distraught wife, abused by the husband.

Bobby meets up with his former girlfriend. This meeting brings the girlfriend into the haunted loop, for she, too, gets to hear sounds and witness strange visions.

“Atmospheric” is one word film critics use to describe the film. The building, while not like the living evil in Amityville Horror, can send chills down one’s spine. Shot at various angles, the building has hallways that are as scary as the shadows that hide in them. The burnished yellow and red tones dominate the place where most of the action takes place. There is no relief in the umbra of the place and even when the lights grow white, as in one scene, in the basement where the washing machines are, a succession of sounds tell us we are safe nowhere. Shot at various angles, the distortions of the buildings from outside do not spare us.

There is a discovery at the end about ghosts. Still, the horror of The Echo is not situated in any of these paranormal events. The abomination in the film is in the story about domestic violence and the fact that even if we witness the battery, we are not allowed to interfere. The terror is there also in ourselves not being able to prevent harm inflicted upon women and children. Easy to write on the film treatment but not easily transferable onscreen, and when one director, Yam Laranas, and his cinematographer, Matthew Irving, are able to do it, then we discover the core of a horror film. It is in that urge in man to hurt and cause pain to himself and the people he cares for, with the act seen up-close like a spectacle, repeated over and over.

When not even physical death and the phantom divide can stop the hatred and the loathing, then we want to run to our mother’s home, but even there we are not safe.

But, of course, I will compare. In Sigaw, Jomari Yllana played the brute of a husband. He was cruel enough. But in Echo, that character is a massive of a man, a cop who beats and mutilates his wife. Kevin Durand plays this vicious character. He does not have to be phantasm; he is terrifying enough and evil as a cop who finds always a reason to beat his wife.

We were, of course, curious about Iza Calzado, who reprises the role of the battered wife. She gets top-billing in The Echo—and she also runs away with her scene. She is intense and she has the grace of someone who knows that the camera is the eye and it will smell like a dog all her abhorrence. She keeps all those pain and recriminations within, as if releasing them will subject her to more punishment. We stand there wondering how we can help her, and that unease is Calzado’s contribution to the literature of Terror. As a footnote, Iza Calzado was honored with the Urian Best Supporting Actress for that role. She honors us once more with this role.

As for Laranas, he proves to be no fluke and provides an avenue for those who want to hit the mainstream film industry, the indie being covered sumptuously already.

Eric Bernt and Shintaro Shimosawa is credited for the screenplay of The Echo. Shimosawa is the producer of both The Grudge and The Echo.