Echoes Of Dread

An intrepid young couple of monster hunters get more than they bargained for when they view some lost footage of a supposed meteor strike, filmed six years before the First World War, deep inside Russia.

Samantha (Principi) and Reuben (Greene) are the Nerd Warriors. They are a self-championing power couple who get hot for anything out of the ordinary. They love spooky shit, and go wild for the macabre, so of course they made a ViewTube channel where they can upload all of their fetishistic ramblings for the whole world to see. This time, they are offered the tease of giant monsters, demonic beings of death and suffering, and the answer to a secret long hidden. So, of course they’re going to go and see what that’s all about.

Rick Harding (Foucheux), professor of Archaeology at Tremper University, Virginia, and long-time host of the popular BBC TV programme, Time Troup, has sent the Nerd Warriors a still of some video footage, containing said giant monster, and they’ve set up a meeting for an interview. It just so happens that Tremper is way out in the middle of the forest somewhere, and the Bellatrix Inn, where the Nerd Warriors are lodging, bears more than a passing resemblance to the Outlook Hotel. It is also merely by coincidence that the landlord and lady are kooky as hell, that there’s sinister looking guests roaming the rooms, and that the landlady’s cat seems to have gone missing.

Once the Nerd Warriors are caught up to speed on Rick Harding’s sudden death, and the torching of his study at the University, which we saw before the title card, they then resort to desperate measures to see the footage that they were promised, not realising the darkness that they could awake in doing so. As the Echoes Of Dread start to leak out of the people of Tremper, the Nerd Warriors have to try to pull themselves together if they’re going to stop the town from being torn apart.

So, if you think that all sounds like standard horror setup, then you’d probably be right, but there’s nothing standard about how Philip Cook presents his film to the audience. As writer, director, producer, cinematographer, and editor of Echoes Of Dread, his stamp is over every frame of the film, and he brings every ounce of experience from his career at Eagle Films to bear as he creates his vision. With his company handling all of the visual effects and sound design on Echoes Of Dread, and he and co-producer/star, Mark Hyde working on the sets and the pyrotechnics together, there are lifetimes of expertise that have gone into this passion project to make it what it is.

Working to the strengths of Eagle Films, Cook seamlessly blends CGI animated segments and in-frame models together with the video he is shooting on Panasonic 4K, to bring his film to life. There is a lot of background animation going on, through the driving sequences which look like car adverts, to the establishing shots of stunning places that don’t look like they can exist, and even onto the human models which stand-in during the more risky or fantastical elements of the film. The monsters though, are where the visual effects really shine, and watching the 1908 footage is truly terrifying and affecting, as it’s impossible to see where the film ends and the fantasy begins while people are being led to their gruesome deaths.

It is a shame that Cook’s character driven scenes don’t match up to the scale and quality of the visual effects, with a real shift in cinematic feel bringing us back down to earth with the actors. It has nothing to do with the script or the performances, as Michelle Principi absolutely lets rip as Samantha, becoming a force of nature herself as she eats up the scenery, while being ably supported by some magnificent turns from Austin Greene as Reuben, Mike Cuccherini as Norman, and Rick Foucheux as Harding. Co-producer Mark Hyde’s turn as the enigmatic Mr. G is also not the self-serving tragedy that it might have been, with him giving enough gravitas and energy to the role to carry it off, but it’s clear that these scenes cinematically need the most work.

Cook’s direction and determination to build his scenes though, is exemplary, with the sound design foremost as foley is painstakingly placed to reinforce the atmosphere of every shot. Increment by increment, each carefully selected shot is added to the scene, along with its sound, to build the vision that Cook knows he wants to see, with the script similarly building naturally, piece by piece, to accommodate a scale that is some of the most truly huge on film. There is barely a misstep in terms of story building throughout Echoes Of Dread, through visuals or dialogue, and that speaks volumes to the craft and expertise which Cook brings to his projects.

With large amounts of industry experience behind it, Echoes Of Dread reaches far further than almost any other low-budget indie feature in its scale and its vision. Its cosmic horror is great and frightening, and the story told to bring it to the viewer has everything inside of it. The Nerd Warriors are cute and fun, Mr. G and Norman make a great monster hunting team, and the monsters are holy hell terrifying, which makes Echoes Of Dread a film that delivers on all fronts as something new and original.