Dead Silence DVD: Review By IrishBlood

This one had a lot of strikes going against it before I even hit play on the DVD player. It's about dolls which is a losing cliche every time and frankly, from the previews, it looked straight outta the Tillamook cheese factory.

But it actually started out pretty well. The story was a very simple "ghost wants revenge" tale with all of the classic American Horror accoutrement that goes with it - misty graveyards, creepy abandoned buildings, whispers and shadows, etc. The ghost is shown sparingly allowing her to remain slightly spooky throughout and there is some interesting gore effects and really good visuals going on.

For a movie based on scary ventriloquist dolls (obvious teen-horror fodder), Dead Silence kind of skimped on the teen cliches which was good. Yeah, the protagonist is a hunky young dude who drives a pristine 70's muscle car and, generally, thumbs his nose at authority, but otherwise it's devoid of screaming bimbos,cheesy nu-metal soundtracks, or even gratuitous CGI gore. Instead, the peripheral characters are Donnie Wahlberg (who continues to play the same character he played in Saw 2 basically) and some random old people. All of which keeps things interesting and had me won over.

That is, until the last 2 minutes when the surprise ending comes around and totally screws the movie up. It's one of those ending where you think everything is over (which I was totally happy with) and then throws in the last twist to answer all of the remaining questions. The ending is terrible, stupid, and completely unnecessary. Way to go douchebags.

Seriously, the ending to this ruins everything. Otherwise, a great ghost story with some cool effects and a decent storyline.