Movieman Madness: Cinema Spotlight IV - James Wan (Part 2): 'Dead Silence'

Mr Ratburn: Since scary books and videos are so popular, lets talk about things that scare us. Anyone want to name something that scares them?
Arthur: Ventriloquist dummies. I mean, what’s all that about anyway? Weird.

From the Arthur episode, "Night Fright"

Lisa and Jamie fooling around with Billy.

Dead Silence, James Wan's sophomoric effort and second collaboration with screenwriter Leigh Whannell, premiered on March 16, 2007. Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) receives a mysterious package containing a ventriloquist dummy named Billy. Later that day, his wife Lisa (Laura Rega) is found dead in their apartment. Jamie is suspicious of the dummy but Detective Lipton (Donnie Walhberg) thinks otherwise. After burying his wife in their hometown of Raven's Fair, Jamie looks for answers on his wife's demise with the dummy in tow and Lipton not far behind. His search leads him to his estranged's father estate, a funeral director (Michael Fairman) who knows about the town's history and the rundown theater where ventriloquist Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts) performed before her sudden death.

Can you spot the Jigsaw puppet?

The movie goes for a Gothic approach with the colors are dimmed down, a lot of black, and the eerie opening credits have that Edgar Allen Poe creep factor. It even opens with the old Universal logo from the 1930's. On a technical aspect it does feel like a classic Horror movie with most of the special effects being practical, the use of fog machines and thunder rumbling in suspenseful scenes. In terms of story it settles for the cliches found in bad horror films whether on predictability or characters making idiotic choices.

Red is evil and a creepy doll. This is definitely a James Wan movie.

We know from the get-go that the dummy is alive and I like how the movie build's up the creepy factor. It plays to the fear of ventriloquist dummies with the room getting quiet, and the power going out that signal its awakening. It plays out like an adult take on the Goosebumps book series Night of the Living Dummy. Slappy and Billy would get along perfectly. The movie is more gruesome than Wan's previous film with how the dummy disposes its victims; it's called Dead Silence for a reason. I'd be more forgiving if the story wasn't mediocre. Everything starts out well from establishing the characters, the eerie atmosphere and a thrilling climax but ends on a empty note like Saw's bleak finale. Sinister didn't end on a happy note but we witness what caused said events to happen in terms of the character. Here, its presented as a gotcha trick for the sake of shocking audiences that had me asking "That's it?' Not to mention a few clues that gave away the final outcome despite leading a false trail.

Detective Lipton and Jamie

The Mary Shaw mystery is interesting with the cause of her curse, her name having a Voldemort effect on the town and dummies seen as a token of death. There's a good ghost story here but the movie never takes full advantage. Maybe there were plans of a sequel that would have shed some light but due to the lack of ticket sales and critics hating the movie, such plans never materialized. Film goers weren't the only ones displeased. Leigh Whannell who co-wrote the movie with Wan hated the final product. So much so that he ranted in a lengthy blog titled "Dud Silence: the Hellish Experience of Making a Bad Horror Film". For whatever reason the post has been lost with a few excerpts still available

”After everything is said and done, I’m almost glad ‘Dead Silence’ happened, because it gave me an extreme, coal-face lesson in what not to do. It was like learning to swim by leaping off Niagara Falls. I only write scripts on spec now, which means that I write them in my own time without getting paid and then take them out into the world to see if anyone’s interested. Never again will I enter the arranged marriage of selling a pitch. I have also become very gun-shy about working with studios. In the world of independent film, what you write ends up on screen. Plus, they don’t have the money to bring in script doctors! Works fine for me. Who knows, maybe one day I will work with a studio again…”

“The shooting of the film was just as nightmarish for James Wan, the director, but I’ll let him tell you that story in his blog one day. I’ll finish by saying that when the film was released, Universal did zero promotion and dumped the film into theaters like toxic waste into a river. Insult, meet injury.”

Despite the final outcome, Dead Silence gave Wan and Whannell a taste of working in Hollywood compared to their last film which was independently made and with low budget. Even with the movie not meeting anyone's expectations it served as a demo for the Horror duo's later work and worth at least one viewing just to see Wan's trademark style carry on from his first film and take fruition.