Other movies in this series:
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Rish's Reviews
I don't particularly like the title, but I sure liked the movie.
A lot of what goes into a horror film review site is having a strong sense of personal taste. I've been told enough times that I wouldn't know a good horror movie if it raped me in the community showers to have developed a thick skin about it (the criticism, not the rape) and stick to my guns. Except for Comedy, I'd say Horror is the most subjective movie genre, since everyone has their own concept of what is scary, what is unsettling, and what approach is the best to get a shiver, goosebumps, or a full-blown scream.
In other words, a lot of people are going to disagree with me here.* I found Dead Silence to be one of the scariest movies of the last five years, and the scariest one I've seen in a year or so. Hey, it's only March, but I can't imagine a more frightening movie will come out in 2007 than Dead Silence.
High praise, I know, but here's where subjectivity comes in. I think dolls are pretty darn creepy. Not dolls like Chucky or Tiffany or Dolly Dearest or anything Charles Band ever worked on, but large, semi-realistic dolls, like the kind your maiden aunt keeps in a big glass case in her living room. And more so than dolls, I find old women scary. A few years back, right after What Lies Beneath came out, I couldn't get the image of a shrivelled old woman dressed in a white dress, crawling across my floor toward my bed. On the set of Swordfish that other Hugh Jackman/Halle Berry flick, I told a couple of guys about it, only to have one of them step back and say, "Holy God, stop talking about that! I can see it in my mind!"
So, maybe it's not just me.
On this site, I've gone on and on about how much the Grudge ghosts scared me, the atmosphere of Kubrick's Shining, and the emotional terror that gets me every time I watch The Sixth Sense (and if I haven't, well, I guess I should start revising more old reviews). So let me say here that I was absolutely unnerved by Mary Shaw, the ghostly old woman-turned-ventriloquist dummy. Literally every time she was onscreen, or lurking somewhere off-screen, I was holding my breath, doing all I could to remain a man and not clutch onto my friend for dear life.
Now, many people have voiced their opinion that this movie was "gay" and that dummies and old ladies are not scary, and anything you find spooky is incredibly not. They're welcome to their own views (which I hope soon include the top of a casket), but like I said, it's all subjective. I find it fascinating what frightens people, but would much rather hear about how the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland caused someone to fill their panteloons than how the dead bodies in The Ring were "lame and totally not scary." In other words, please contribute to the conversation instead of thumbing your (rather runny) nose at those who do.
I would like to note that there was quite a bit of CGI in the film, but it was the scenes with real life (or real dead) human beings that freaked me out. In fact, I told tyranist on the drive home that if you cut this film's budget in half, it probably would have been as good, and definitely just as scary.
A big subject of discussion was that the film didn't do well, partly because it was rated R (in the U.S., but not in Canada), instead of the much more profitable PG-13. I guess I could speculate on why it got an R (there is violence toward children), but it was clearly designed to have the lesser rating. I may have to write an essay about this. Consider yourself warned.
Tyranist and I were both chilled and we both totally enjoyed this one. And as fun as it is to mock bad movies, it's also pretty cool to really like one. Too bad it didn't make more money. I don't imagine it will still be playing by the time you read this, but at least go out and rent the video. If you didn't think it was scary, I will personally send you a picture of me giving you the finger. That's a guarantee you won't get from any other website.
Best Scare: There were one HELL of a lot of good scares (tyranist and I each made a list of what we thought were the strongest points of the film, and only one moment was on both lists. In the interest of fairness, however, it was the coffin scene, and it topped both our lists.
I'd Recommend It To: Look, you're probably not going to get to see this in a cinema, where it would truly shine, but I hope you pick it up on DVD, if only to form your own opinion on the scariness of dolls versus old women.
*And indeed, a whole lot of them did. The one review I bothered to read claimed that the plotholes are so great, they add up to "a cinematic black hole from which no logic can escape," but said nothing about how scary or unscary the film is (in fact, he seemed to have more against the filmmakers than the film itself, a crime that, though I've been guilty of it more than once, is still a crime).
Posted: March 29, 2007

The tyranist's thoughts
Rish so didn't want to see this one (he must have asked me a hundred times whether I really wanted to see it leading up to the night we went) and I am so very glad that I dragged him to it. I think he is too. Made by the same guys the brought you the Saw movies and who I hope to see do a lot more horror in the future, this one isn't to be missed. I was pulled in by the creepy poster that feature only the doll, but then dolls scare me. And clowns. And moths. Luckily only two of three show up here.
A young man and his young bride receive a mysterious package in the mail. It turns out to be a ventriloquist's dummy. Doesn't mean a thing to the young bride, but it creeps the young man out pretty bad. Soon she is dead and he is going home to try to figure out what happened. Only home may be the last place he should have gone.
There are some truly spectacular scares in this one. The entire film is dark and just a bit washed out, a choice that made me somewhat uncomfortable for the duration of the movie and that sets up the scares nearly perfectly. The little town is filled with odd people and odd locations, but even worse, it is home to some heinous acts of violence, two of which are fairly natural, the rest of which are disturbingly supernatural. Mary Shaw is a terrifying character and her dolls are nearly as bad. And for once, the filmmakers used everything they set up to full effect. Thank you.
There is one particular scene so horrifying that I was sure I would dream about it. And I did dream about Mary Shaw that night, but luckily that scene never replayed itself for me. I probably wouldn't have slept much had that happened. As it stands, I'm writing this almost a week after we saw the movie and I can still see every second of that scene in my mind if I care to dredge it up. I get chills even now.
The movie is decently acted. I've read reviews that called them wooden, which I think is the worst sort of pun. They weren't fantastic, by any stretch, but they were decent. Even Donnie Wahlberg, who was given an awful, awful role that existed just so our hero wasn't completely alone the entire time, made the most of what he had to work with. The dialogue isn't too bad, but it wasn't exceptional. It was truly in the setting and the scares that the movie really shined.
I can only ask you to give this movie a chance. It has been overlooked and it doesn't deserve that fate. It deserves to be hauled into the night where it can scare large groups of teenage girls until they have to leave the hall light on all night so that they can sleep.
Posted: March 29, 2007

Total Skulls: 16

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears		Donnie Wahlberg
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?