‘Spirits have long memories…’
You would think that the follow-up to Saw from co-creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell would be more well-known within the horror community. As it is, Dead Silence came and went without much of a reaction and it wasn’t until Insidious three years later that Wan and Whannell created any kind of cultural imprint again. While Dead Silence is certainly dated and not all that great anyway, it does set the blueprint for both Insidious and its many sequels and later The Conjuring…
Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) is dragged into a strange conspiracy involving the ghost of a woman named Mary Shaw in his home town of Ravens Fair. There he reunites with his distant father (Bob Gunton) and tries to escape the clutches of determined detective Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg).
Dead Silence borrows liberally from other horror films that deal with myths and legends, most notably A Nightmare on Elm Street and Candyman. The gimmick here is that if you scream, you’re dead. And in the most grisly manner possible. The American remake of The Ring also looms large as an influence here, in terms of both plotting and the inexplicably blue tint that infests the entire movie (welcome to 2007, I guess),
You can see the seed of Wan’s later work throughout Dead Silence. The folk tales. The haunted house vibe. The creepy nursery rhyme. Indeed, the sound design is great throughout and a stronger cast could have turned this into a minor horror classic. Unfortunately, Kwanten never convinces as a leading man and the supporting cast doesn’t offer up much either.
Dead Silence is a curious movie with a wonderfully baffling ending that foreshadows other great Wan twists (particularly Malignant) but it never quite hangs together convincingly. Fans of Insidious and The Conjuring and their ilk will probably enjoy the jumpscares and use of chiaroscuro lighting to create atmosphere but Dead Silence is unlikely to enjoy a renaissance any time soon. Having said that, it does feature Donnie Wahlberg randomly pulling out an electric shaver at random moments so all’s not lost.