Director Yam Laranas’s “The Echo” and “Patient X” both opened in October and continue to be screened this month, giving his career a big boost. Here are our notes on his movies:

“The Echo” is Laranas’s Hollywood remake of 2004’s “Sigaw” which he also directed and co-wrote with Roy Iglesias. It’s about Bobby (played by Jesse Bradford), an ex-convict who discovers the gory secret of the rundown apartment building where his mother lived until she mysteriously died shortly before his release from jail.

The movie is disturbing since fade-in as Bobby begins a new life that seems as dark as his new dwelling place. It turns more unsettling when he starts hearing eerie noises and having strange encounters with his next-door neighbors – a woman, her daughter and her abusive husband who’s a cop.

Worse, the building manager is deaf to Bobby’s complaints as the unexplained occurrences claim two more lives and haunt even the protagonist’s girlfriend, Alyssa (Amelia Warner).

In despair, Bobby extracts an explanation from the man who lives in an apartment building directly across from his. He gets back to his place just in time to rescue Alyssa and finally put a closure to the deathly mystery.

“The Echo” won’t make you scream at the top of your lungs but it will keep you on the edge of your seat all throughout the film in quiet terror.

 It’s scary enough that Bobby’s apartment is haunted but it’s even more terrifying what the abused woman (Iza Calzado in a sterling performance) and her daughter have gone through. They have suffered not only at the hands of the abusive cop but also from the indifference of their neighbors.

“Patient X,” on the other hand, is Laranas’s reunion movie with “Sigaw” leading man, Richard Gutierrez, who also co-produced it through his RGutz Productions.

Gutierrez plays Lukas Esguerra, a city doctor who goes back to his provincial hometown upon the request of his childhood friend, Police Chief Alfred Molina (TJ Trinidad), whose wife and kid were killed just like the way Lukas’s family died 20 years ago.

Lukas comes face-to-face with the prime suspect locked up at the town hospital’s basement: Guada (Cristine Reyes). She confesses to be one of the aswangs responsible for the gruesome slayings but insists to have escaped from them because she does not want to kill anymore. She begs for Lukas’s forgiveness and to be freed because it’s she, as the wife of Markus (Elvis Gutierrez), who the thug-like aswangs want.

 Against Alfred’s strict orders, Lukas sets out to free Guada in the hope of saving everybody in the hospital from the aswangs. He soon realizes that he and a young patient are the only ones left but he has to fight Markus to keep them alive.

“Patient X” has the technical elements of a spine-chiller like “The Echo” but it falls short of expectations because of an inadequate script. There are scenes that momentarily freeze you in dreadful suspense but most of the time, you get distracted by questions popping in your head, like Guada’s back story and how she was able to leave Markus. This is a pity because we were hoping – and really wanted – to fully enjoy the movie.