It is my duty to warn all of the wonderful readers of this blog about crappy horror movies so that you don’t waste any time this October. The month is too short as it is and should be filled with only the best books, movies, etc. So, that is why I review the new, old, good and bad. I decided to watch Dead Silence because it looked creepy and I hadn’t seen it. I had never even heard of it before but it was released in 2007. I watched it on Netflix.

*Spoilers*

The Synopsis

Jamie Ashen and his wife, Lisa, randomly receive an anonymous gift, a ventriloquist dummy named Billy. (Side note: Billy is almost identical to Slappy from Goosebumps.) Soon after receiving Billy, Lisa is home alone. Strange things begin to occur and then all the noise in the house mysteriously goes quiet. As Lisa goes into the bedroom where Billy is she sees a figure, screams, tries to leave the room but is dragged back into it. Jamie returns home later to find his wife dead with her tongue ripped out. The police take him away for questioning and once he’s released he returns home. Once there he looks in Billy’s box and sees a message about Billy’s former owner and ventriloquist, Mary Shaw. He discovers that Mary is mysteriously from his hometown of Raven’s Fair. He leaves to go to his father’s home to figure out who Mary Shaw is and how Billy ended up at his door. He meets the local mortician, Henry, and Henry tells him the legend of Mary Shaw. She was a ventriloquist who was publicly humiliated when a boy, Michael, pointed out that he could see her mouth moving during a show. Soon after Michael went missing and his family blamed Mary. They killed her and her last wish was to be made into a human ventriloquist dummy.  Filled with rage, Mary planned to get revenge on the entire bloodline. Jamie discovers that Michael was his great-uncle and realizes that Mary was responsible for his wife’s death. Jamie is determined to destroy the spirit of Mary Shaw and all of her one hundred and one dummies even if it kills him.

My Thoughts

This movie was more disappointing to me than it was bad. It could’ve been so good if they would’ve changed just a few things. I’ll break down what I liked and didn’t like about it.

What I Liked:

• The overall story was really creepy; but that may just be because ventriloquist dummies freak me out (thank you for that, Goosebumps).
• Mary Shaw was actually terrifying. When you see her for the first time it is genuinely creepy because she looks like a corpse and dummy combined. I wish they would’ve showed her more throughout the movie.
• Major Spoiler Mary Shaw turned Michael into a human dummy and that was an interesting and gruesome twist.

What I Disliked:

• The script for this movie was TERRIBLE. The writing was just cheesy and boring.
• The acting was really bad and the character that got on my nerves the most was Detective Jim Lipton, played by Donnie Wahlberg. It surprised me how bad his acting was because I love Donnie Wahlberg in Blue Bloods and I know he’s talented. I’m just assuming the way the script was written didn’t give him much to work with.
• The only scary part about this movie was Mary Shaw and they only showed her a handful of times.

So basically, if there would have been a better script, better acting and more Mary Shaw this could have been a very scary movie. I’m not going to say you shouldn’t watch it because it’s not the worst movie out there but it’s by far not the best. If you’ve seen this let me know what you thought about it! Also, let me know what other movies I should watch. Thank you for reading and have a great day!