A man returns to his hometown to uncover the decades-old mystery that resulted in his wife’s murder. With puppets.

I think it’s admirable that after creating the Saw franchise and initiating the recent trend of gritty horror films James Wan and Leigh Whannell have decided to take a step in a different direction with their follow-up film, Dead Silence. Unfortunately, they haven’t started with a clean slate, bringing with them a load of baggage from Saw that muddies the proceedings.

Dead Silence is filled to the brim with characters discussing what’s going on without very much actually happening. Stories and folktales are evoked, added upon, then proven untrue, making for a very frustrating experience. The scenes where Wan most emulates silent films and the old Universal horror movies prove to be the most effective, particularly in their use of sound, but these elements are immediately undercut by machine gun editing and a techo-metal soundtrack so as not to lose it’s core audience. The whole thing is wishy-washy, never completely having faith in its own vision.

While the acting was touch and go, with Donnie Wahlberg standing out as the most sardonic cop this side of Tom Atkins, lead actor Ryan Kwanten gave the blandest performance I have seen in years and was one of the main reasons the film tanks. To be fair, his presence was in keeping with the pace of the rest of the movie, where seemingly important plot points were revealed with little to no emphasis placed upon them. Sure we learn why everything is happening to the characters, but the answers are delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner that not even the victims register shock.

A complicated storyline doesn’t necessarily equal a complex one. And it should be noted that despite all the CGI, elaborate sets and stattaco editing, the creepiest part of the movie was a simple tableau of an old lady with a ventriloquist’s dummy sitting on her lap. I just wish there had been more of an emphasis on that.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Movies, Ghosts, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.