DEAD SILENCE
I don't remember why but I didn't pay attention to DEAD SILENCE when it came out. I suppose I expected it to be like most theatrically released studio horror, the kind of stuff that seems like a WB show with some mild teen based horror mixed in. It turns out to be a great picture with some nice touches and some creepy moments that plays out as an EC Comics style fairy tale.
There's plenty of creepy stuff about good natured, happy ventriloquists much less a scary old lady ventriloquist. There's also lots of helpful stuff you can learn in the film like to be on your toes when someone unexpectedly delivers a ventriloquy dummy to your house and never tell the creepy Anne Richards looking ventriloquist that you can see her lips moving.
A man's wife is killed shortly after receiving the dummy at their house by having her tongue ripped out. A cop (Donnie Walberg) thinks the guy killed his own wife and follows him back to his creepy hometown which has a history of even creepier ventriloquist mogambo because of Mary Shaw. Mary Shaw was a big time ventriloquist who was killed and is pissed, but lives on in scary nursery rhymes and ghost stories. Pretty much everything is creepy about the hometown, there's even a dummy graveyard. There's lots of great sets, especially the old theater where Shaw performed. The film itself has a great look of washed out colors with lots of gray and bright reds. It's filled with everything old, musty and decrepit with a nice attention to detail. It's also pretty fetishistic about the creepy details of ventriloquism. There's bucket and buckets of nightmare fuel in this thing for anybody freaked out by dolls and dummies, especially clown dummies in rocking chairs at midnight. I didn't really expect this traditional a ghost story to come from the boys behind SAW but it's a nice change. There seemed to be some Mario Bava influence here and there and maybe a little Argento era DEEP RED. Mary Shaw especially reminded me of the dead old lady from BLACK SABBATH. The flashback scene to the "golden age of ventriloquy" (I assume there was one) is pretty fucking masterful and the confrontation with the boy who saw her lips moving plays with some serious high tension. Nicely done. You're probably gonna spot a gruesome twist coming but that's okay because it's fun enough and fairly grisly. The DVD looks great and also the sound really adds to the mood. I suppose the use of the old "Universal" logo at the opening clues you in that it's gonna be a throwback to an older kind of picture but it works great and is a million miles away from SAW. It definitely moves to the top of the creepy dummy pictures for me. A really great Halloween choice too.