DVD Review: Dead Silence (Unrated)

Who doesn’t love a good horror movie? And who doesn’t think that wooden marionettes with their big bulbous eyes aren’t creepy? Same goes for creepy looking clowns (see below)! I had the opportunity to review a pre-released version of Dead Silence this weekend and I have to say that I enjoyed it. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of horror movies mainly because I feel there are too many swerves, but Dead Silence mixed great acting with an interesting story tied together by a family curse. Really good stuff here, folks.

In talking about this movie, first things first: Ryan Kwanten does an AWESOME job as Jamie Ashen, the main character of the film (pictured to the left). The movie starts with Kwanten undergoing a huge family loss (his wife is killed) – his search for answers occupies the remainder of the film. As you soon find out, he has been pegged as the main suspect in his wife’s death and he’s out to prove himself innocent. A lot of the suspense and drama in the film are the sole result of Kwanten’s performances. His facial expressions and deep breathing make one of the early scenes in a hotel room especially creepy. Many of the scenes actually show Kwanten with only a wooden doll to share the scene with. Being able to pull good performances out of a wooden co-star is pretty spectacular! Good job!

Also in this movie is former New Kid on the Block, Donnie Wahlberg. It is interesting that Donnie plays a detective since his brother, Mark Wahlberg, just got done playing a detective in the “Departed.” Regardless of what you thought about Mark’s performance, Donnie is just as good if not better in some respects in his role as Det. Jim Lipton in “Dead Silence.” I was pleasantly surprised by Donnie’s acting acumen.

Now this may sound weird, but one of the best features of this film was the camera work and the set design. I mean it was just magnificent. Good job to the director and production team all around. The camera work really did a great job of enhancing the suspense and drama of the movie and that’s a hard thing to accomplish.

The DVD also comes with some “extras” including an alternate opening and alternate ending as well as some commentary from the filmmakers. Just like everyone else out there, I like seeing a little something extra after a movie is over and these features along with the deleted scenes did not disappoint. And for you uber nerds out there, one of the extras is a timeline of how one scene goes from a CGI graphic to an actual scene in the movie – pretty interesting stuff, really.

The cover art on the box of the DVD says, “You Scream. You Die.” Such is the curse of Mary Shaw (Mary Shaw is the hottie in the photo above) – but why is the curse in existence? Who does it effect? How can it be stopped? How do Kwanten and Wahlberg all fit into this horror movie? Well folks, Dead Silence comes out on DVD this Tuesday, July 26th.

I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this film and giving it a whirl one night. But before you do that, go to the top of this post and click on the movie’s official website – it’s pretty creepy and very well done. My favorite part of the site is the Dumm-E Mail you can send people. The people who are promoting this film sent me one and it’s pretty damn freaky (then again, I think that marionettes and clowns are scary as hell anyway). Once again, go out and get a copy of this movie – you won’t be disappointed!