Story about Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) whose wife is killed--her tongue ripped out of her mouth--although there was only a ventriloquist's dummy in the house. Detective Jim Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg) thinks Jamie is as guilty as hell...but he didn't do it. He traces it back to his home town and a dead lady ventriloquist named Mary Shaw and her creepy dummies.

This movie rightfully opens with the old Universal logo used in the 1930s. It fits--this is not a blood and guts movie. Heck it barely warrants an R rating! There's no nudity, sex, swearing and all the violence happens off screen. The views of the dead people--which are pretty gruesome--probably gave it the R.

This is a good solid horror film. It has some quiet creepy chills (especially at the beginning with the dummy on the bed) that really work on you--especially if you find dummies downright unsettling (like I do). There are some "jump" shocks with things leaping out at you--but not much. It has great music, nice direction (love how the maps become real) and has some truly eerie settings. The acting won't win any awards but it's pretty solid. Kwanten is good as the lead and Wahlberg has a few nice and purposefully funny moments in his role. It all leads up to a climax (on a dark and stormy night no less) and a final twist that works just great--even though it doesn't make a lot of sense. This is for those horror viewers that don't need blood and guts shoved in their face to enjoy a movie. I give it a 7.

Best line: "Who's the dummy now?"

I found "Dead Silence" fairly routine for the most part. But coming as it does from the guys who gave us the "Saw" movies, there is an element of the grotesque meeting the Gothic. When a young man's fiancée is brutally murdered after they receive a dummy in the mail, he returns to his home town to investigate. His home town has the look of urban decay. But if the town looks unpleasant, it's only because of the events that transpired there in previous years, and how they relate to this young man.

It's true, dummies often figure in horror movies (or sometimes serious movies, as "Cradle Will Rock" showed). But the role that the dummies play here truly is enough to chill just about anyone. What's particularly fascinating - to me, at least - is the root of the word "ventriloquist", and the story of the ventriloquist character in this movie. True, there are some clichés: old, nervous people have secrets that they don't want to tell; a cop doesn't believe the main character; and black, colonial dresses. But what the movie reveals as it progresses holds some real surprises. Therefore, I recommend it. But not if you get scared too easily.

Starring Amber Valletta (the young woman in "What Lies Beneath"),Bob Gunton (the warden in "The Shawshank Redemption") and Donnie Wahlberg.

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.