Dead Silence (2007)

Strictly average movie

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Not only did James Wan take the haunted doll genre to a new level, he created an utterly suspenseful, interesting murder mystery. Exceptionally well done.

Movie Review: "Dead Silence" (2006)After the immense success of a low-budget short-film-turns-feature production "Saw" (2004), director James Wan gets the engagement with Universal Studios to realize his follow-up picture, again written together with fellow Leigh Whannell. The screenplay concerns a female ventriloquist in a U.S. small town who gets marked on stage in front of a major audience by a boyish audience member in the 1930s, who then disappears to forge a curse that will haunt a family of main character Jamie Ashen, performed uneventful, no memorable-beat-given by miscast leading actor Ryan Kwanten. Director James Wan creates some decent shots of ambiance horrors with cinematographer John R. Leonetti, which then gets completely disarranged by editor Michael N. Knue in an editorial that just does not want to balance itself; too pretentious seem the super-imposing, double-layering, fast-zoom push-ins and repetitious slow eyeball-pull outs that not one scene seems to interconnect with the next. Nevertheless the talent of the director, who made fair use of his promotional-raised production budget from 1, at the "Saw" production in Season 2003/2004, to 20 Million U.S. Dollar with Universial Pictures in Season 2005/2006, lets unmistakably underline the fact that the filmmaking Horror genre also needs a director's final cut decision-making to maintain the intended suspense-screw-driving to maximize high-tension shocker effects.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

DEAD SILENCE is another in the overworked genre of 'creepy doll' movies. These have been a cinematic staple ever since the 1930s, making period resurgences in classics like DEAD OF NIGHT, B-movies like THE DEVIL-DOLL, and inspiring a busy sub-genre of '80s films like the CHILD PLAY franchise. More recently, films such as ANNABELLE and THE DOLL have sought to breathe new life into the genre with middling results, and middling is a word I'd use to describe this film.Like INSIDIOUS, DEAD SILENCE is a film that tries and tries very hard to scare the audience. If you have a fear of ventriloquist's dolls then it might frighten you, but I thought they tried a bit too hard with all the jump scares and attempted creepiness. The story is fast-paced and complex but also totally unbelievable, and some of the twists provoke laughter rather than fear. Imagine a ghost story told in the same flashy style as the SAW series (SAW director James Wan is behind this) and that's what this film is like. Aussie actor Ryan Kwanten stars, alongside the reliable Donnie Wahlberg (another SAW veteran) and old-timer Bob Gunton.

Review (1~5)#Content: Script 3 | Acting 3 | Cinematography 4 | Film Editing 3#Visual: Costume Design 3 | Makeup & Hairstyling 4 | Scenic Design 4 | Lighting 3 | Visual Effects 3#Sound: Score & Soundtracks 3 | Sound Editing & Mixing 3#Overall (1~10): 5