The young and happily married couple, Jamie & Lisa Ashen, are enjoying a nice relaxing evening at home… that is, until they discover an unmarked mysterious package on their doorstep. They open the box to reveal a creepy looking ventriloquist’s dummy. The couple is instantly reminded of an old legend from their hometown of Raven's Fair:

“Beware the stare of Mary Shaw.
She had no children, only dolls.
If you see her in your dream,
Please be sure not to scream.”

Thinking nothing of it, Jamie ventures out to grab some dinner for he and Lisa, only to return home and find his wife brutally murdered. Oh, did I mention the doll is out of its package now? After alerting the authorities, Jamie is made aware that he is the number one suspect in his wife’s murder, not the doll (go figure).

Upon leaving the police station, Jamie grabs the doll (that’s right, he grabs the doll) and heads back to his old stomping ground of Raven's Fair to look for answers regarding his wife’s murder and to learn what, if anything, the legend of Mary Shaw had to do with it. Jamie Ashen is about to learn that some legends should remain shrouded in mystery, never to be spoken of aloud. In fact, they should remain veiled in Dead Silence.

Okay that last line was lame, I know. Anyway, onto the review. Dead Silence was a mixed bag for me. Parts of the film really worked, and others… well… didn’t.

I’ll start with the bad. Did you read my summary of the plot yet? Well it starts there. The progression of the story is very poor. Now I’ve seen my fair share of horror movies; creepy doll movies at that. But how our main character immediately jumps past all logic and reason and instantly assumes the doll and the legend of Mary Shaw had something to do with his wife’s murder are beyond me. Now in this case he may have been right, but if I were in his shoes, I might have looked at the logical and non-supernatural reasons first before making that leap of faith. That’s just the start of it, though. The way things proceed to unfold in this movie are at times just downright crappy. Given the strength of the plot and story progression in James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s previous outing, Saw, I thought they could have done a bit better with this one.

My second problem is the acting. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen much worse acting by far. But when you’ve got a cast that includes Donnie Wahlberg, who had an amazing performance in Saw II, and your movie’s strongest performance comes from Billy the ventriloquist’s dummy, that’s a problem. On the other hand, had this movie been a Sci-Fi Original, the acting would have been Oscar-worthy.

Finally, Wan & Whannell deliver a twist ending ala Saw. The only difference is in Saw, the twist ending either made the movie or broke the movie for the viewers. In most cases, it was the former. But the twist we get in Dead Silence is just pointless, not clever and completely unnecessary.

Now that I’ve finished 3 paragraphs worth of complaining, let’s get to the good stuff. This movie is downright creepy at times with a capital C-R-E-E-P-Y. The doll movements were very well done yet not overdone. The corpses looked great. And the ghost of Mary Shaw is enough to give anyone nightmares. Oh yeah parents, don’t let your kids watch this movie unless you want them sleeping in your bed until they’re 15.

The movie also features a very unique use of sound. In most horror movies, right before something scary happens, you get the creepy music or the loud noise to warn you (highly cliché). In Dead Silence, like the name implies, the sound slowly and eerily dies right before the crap hits the fan. It was a rather simple technique, but it was creative and highly effective.

All in all, I didn’t think this movie was great but it wasn’t bad either. It’s worth seeing at least once or twice.

I give it 6 out of 10 reasons to avoid this movie if you're afraid of both dolls AND clowns.