Dead Silence

There've been rumblings here and there that Universal Studios whittled James Wan's evil dummy movie, Dead Silence, into something a little less than intended. If that is true, I'm holding out hope for the director's cut. If not, well… Dead Silence is still a decent, if somewhat wooden, entry in the underutilized area of ventriloquist dolls in the horror movie genre.

While Dead Silence doesn't compare to classics such as The Great Gabbo or Magic — or even that eerie episode of The Twilight Zone — it's been quite some time since we've had creepy dolls treated seriously onscreen (unless you count the griping Barbie heads in Terry Gilliam's Tideland… eeek!). While other horror filmmakers have decided to take a campy angle on the idea that dolls/dummies/puppets can become possessed, Wan and his writing collaborator, Leigh Whannell, gambled on the idea that deep down, audiences would rather have gasps than giggles when it comes to diabolical dollies.

A bland but not unlikable Ryan Kwanten plays Jamie Ashen, a 20-something newlywed who gets a strange, anonymous gift left on his doorstep: A grinning, leering ventriloquist's dummy carved in an old-style, Charlie McCarthy'esque countenance. After he and his wife Lisa (Laura Regan) marvel and wonder over the doll for a spell, Jamie heads out to pick up some Chinese food. Lisa soon learns that when you are a dead ringer for Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, being alone in an apartment is a very bad idea.

After Jamie finds Lisa's ravaged dead body and becomes a suspect in her murder, he grabs Billy the Dummy and heads out for his hometown of Ravens Fair, where he is convinced the answers to her death lie. You see, Billy once belonged to a local 1930s-era ventriloquist, Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts), and there was a poem about how she a curse she put on the townspeople after she was murdered, vigilante-style. Why was she killed…? Well, you'll just have to see Dead Silence to learn the answer to that.

The acting in Dead  Silence is much better than it was in Wan's 2004 directorial-debut Saw, however, to feel more like an old 1960s Hammer-style film (which is, according to the filmmakers, what they were after), it could have been a little more over-the-top and ghoulishly gothic across the board.

Characters like the ever-shaving, wisecracking Det. Jim Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg), scared-stiff mortician Henry Walker (Michael Fairman), and the deeply disturbed Mrs. Walker (Joan Heney) were fun, but underdone. Two of the most interesting characters of all — Jamie's sexy new stepmom (Amber Valletta) and his elderly, stroke-stricken dad (Bob Gunton) — were good enough to take center stage but they're only in a couple of scenes.

Billy is a truly sinister critter, and fortunately he delivers the chill-inducing goods with just a well-placed glance here, and an unexpected grin there. He does have a few freaky friends, but unfortunately a big scene involving Mary Shaw's 101 dolls is needlessly augmented with way too much in-your-face CGI. (Saw fans, keep your eyes peeled for a cameo from the first 'Billy'!)

As for the setting itself, the fogbound streets of Ravens Fair, the spine-chilling cemetery, and the isolated, abandoned performing arts theater were cool, but hardly utilized to their full potential. We spend way too much time following Jamie from Point A to Point B without really settling in and getting comfy in any one area.

I had three major problems with Dead Silence, which is why I recommend you wait for the DVD (hopefully it will be reedited, and newly color-timed). The main character is the least-interesting person in the story; and the plodding pace is underscored by the life-leeched, bled-out color palette.

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