Guilty Pleasures: Dead Silence
There’s nothing wrong with a bad movie. There is a problem with too many bad movies. Due to an over exposure to shit… I find it hard to dislike anything. These are just a few of my guilty pleasures.
DEAD SILENCE
Let’s face it, puppets are scary as hell. It doesn’t matter if it was Goosebumps or the Anthony Hopkins’ creepfest Magic that did it, almost everyone is terrified by a ventriloquist dummy. I love the Muppets, don’t get me wrong, but those things are adorable. There’s something about the cold, wooden and lifeless stare that is undeniably eerie. In 2007 James Wan riding high off the success of Saw made his follow-up Dead Silence.
Sadly Dead Silence didn’t fare well financially or critically. Making just 16.5 Million in the box office, it was pulled from theaters after just 16 days. Luckily (for Wan anyway), the Saw films continued to make money so he could keep making his other poorly received Death Sentence and the surprisingly well received Insidious.
I am not a fan of the Saw movies. In fact, I gave up on them around fourth film despite not even liking the original film (yes the ending surprised me…but by then I was too bored to care anymore). When Dead Silence came out on DVD I was working at a video store and thus got to preview movies a few days before they were available to rent. The day Dead Silence came out I was very reluctant to even watch it, however I quickly fell in love with it.
The film opens with Jamie Ashen and his wife Lisa. A mysterious package arrives at their door containing a ventriloquist dummy named Billy. Jamie goes to pick up dinner and when he arrives Lisa is dead with her tongue torn out. Detective Jim Lipton (played by Marky Mark’s less talented brother Donnie) suspects Jamie… but without any proof he’s soon forced to release him.
Jamie discovers the puppet’s owner is Mary Shaw, a horror legend from his hometown. Jamie goes to his estranged father about Mary Shaw. His dad has suffered a stroke and is now bound to a wheelchair. Jamie meets his new (and very young) stepmother Ella. Jamie is warned to get rid of the Billy puppet, but no matter what he does it keeps coming back.
I want to pause in the plot summary to discuss the look of the film. It’s got a strange bluish tint throughout which it creates a weird atmosphere right off the bat. In most films this would piss me off, but it seems to be quite fitting to this particular story. According to wikipedia (the source of absolute truth) the film was originally conceived as being a poem told to the audience, if this is true I think the blueish tint does add a nice fairy tale/fantasy feel. Based on the time period of when Mary Shaw existed the style continues to makes sense. The opening scene also begins in a grainy black and white style and the Universal logo displayed as the original one from the early 20’s. It’s decisions like this that which mix this film up just enough to keep it slightly interesting. Anyway… back to the movie.
The Billy doll keeps ending up in different peoples hands, beginning with Detective Lipton and ending with his father. Jamie realizes that if he destroys the puppet the curse of Mary Shaw will be put to rest. So he has to rush to his father to get the Billy doll and destroy it. It’s at his father’s house he discovers… okay… for serious… this is a big ass spoiler. It’s also the most amazingly ridiculous twist in a horror movie since Sleepaway Camp, so if you don’t want this spoiled… skip the rest of this paragraph and just jump ahead, you’ve been very fairly warned…his father has been a goddamn puppet the whole time and Ella is possessed by Mary Shaw.
Dead Silence is a fun film because it’s not a body count film, it’s about a man trying to get to the bottom of his wife’s death. When people do die though, it’s pretty horrifying effects. While the film did poorly and plans for a sequel have been put on hold, the films seems to be developing a following. All month the horror community on reddit has been discussing it’s underratedness (it’s a word I just coined it).
So if you like the Saw movies or just really hate puppets, check this out. Personally I’d love to see it cut together with footage of the Muppets, that would tickle my heart strings.
