I wanna start out by stating very clearly that I have never understood the fascination with trying to make ventriloquist dummies scary or something. Add them to the list that includes gingers, clowns, and the overwhelming majority of the subjects of Blumhouse movies. So, an entire film dedicated to trying to make one scary already has something of a handicap in my eyes. Sorry, Dead Silence.
The story follows Jamie as he receives a ventriloquist dummy out of the blue (more on that color momentarily). Shortly thereafter, his wife is found brutally murdered in their apartment, no sign of forced entry or anything else untoward, aside from the fact that her tongue was clearly cut out. Odd, right? He travels back to his ancestral home to bury her, sparking a dive down the urban legend rabbit hole of late ventriloquist Mary Shaw. The deeper Jamie goes, more and more spooky occurrences happen, all seemingly revolving around the dummy and its former owner.
I had no idea going in that this was done by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the boys behind the Saw franchise, and, honestly, they’d probably prefer I remember them for the former. This is one terribly ugly film, all of the colors washed out and things tinted a thorough teal (though deep reds are allowed to explore their depths and express themselves in as much garishness as possible), making everything into a cold, stony mess. The score is too loud and overbearing, wiping away any hope the film had for building dread or atmosphere (think a hokier version of what Goblin did to the original Suspiria). Thing is, that’s not as much of a problem as you might think, as the script is too poor to ever create anything scary. The film trades almost entirely in jump scares, where it doesn’t it leans on the usual dummy-based tropes (like turning his head subtly behind people’s backs and such), and the dialogue is loaded with nonsense (my favorite bad line from the first act: Our boy Jamie comes upon a tea kettle boiling on the stove and responds with “What’re you trying to do, burn the place down?” I mean, with what, a kettle of boiling water?). The acting isn’t very strong, not at all helped by the script, and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Ryan Kwanten looked like someone who would play Cary Elwes in a flashback sequence or something (that’s not a major knock, just an observation).
In sum, the film didn’t work for me at all, not in the slightest. It’s too focused on looking like a bland horror movie from the late ‘00s to actually rise above its station, and James Wan is trying too hard to make unworkable material work (pushing through two eyes within seconds, James? What’re you, Ultraviolet?). I’d skip this one, were I you, kids, it’s got nothing to offer but sadness.
Allusions of Grandeur 