Other Titles • Silence (2006) • Dead Silence (2007)
Synopses for Dead Silence (2007)
1.
There is an old ghost story in the sleepy town of Ravens Fair about Mary Shaw, a ventriloquist who went mad. Accused of the murder of a young boy, she was hunted down by vengeful townspeople who cut out her tongue and killed her. They buried her along with her "children," a hand-made collection of vaudeville dolls.
Since that time, Ravens Fair has been plagued by death. The ghastly dolls from Mary Shaw's collection have gone missing from the grave and reappeared over the decades. In the dead of night--wherever they are glimpsed--families are found gruesomely murdered...with their tongues torn out.
Far from the pall of their hometown, newlyweds Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen thought they had established a fresh start. But when his wife is grotesquely killed, Jamie reluctantly returns to Ravens Fair for the funeral, intent on unraveling the mystery of her death.
Once reunited with his ill father (Bob Gunton) and his father's new young bride (Amber Valletta), Jamie must dig into the town's bloody past to find out who killed his wife and why. As he uncovers the legend of Mary Shaw, Jamie unlocks the story of her curse and the truth behind the song from his childhood: if you see her and scream, you will never speak again.
Old ladies, ventriloquist dummies, decrepit small-towns, and dolls are all exploited for their full creepy potential in DEAD SILENCE, a relatively innocent but thoroughly scary horror feature from the makers of SAW. After a heavily stylized black-and-white opening credit sequence that shows the story’s central ghost, Mary Shaw, constructing her beloved ventriloquist dolls back in her heyday, the film transports viewers to the present. As newlyweds Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen putter lovingly about their apartment far from their hometown of Raven’s Fair, it is clear that something bad is about to happen. This dread is only further cemented when a knock on the door leads the lovebirds to discover an unmarked box containing a worn but eerily lifelike ventriloquist's dummy. Lisa is all too friendly towards the doll and gets what’s coming to her when Jamie goes out to pick up some takeout, returning to find his wife’s mangled body (minus her tongue) propped up like the dummy seemingly responsible for her death.
With detective Jim Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg) on his heels, and a very guilty dummy in his passenger seat, grieving Jamie returns to Raven’s Fair with the hunch that his wife’s death is linked to the town’s murdered ventriloquist, Mary Shaw. Once grand, Raven’s Fair is now in a state of decay, and many of its inhabitants have died mysterious and brutal deaths in the years since Jamie was last home. Jamie arrives at his wealthy father’s home, only to find a young new bride (Amber Valetta) by his side. No one wants to talk about Mary Shaw, let alone whisper her name. If Jamie is going to get to the bottom of the Mary Shaw legend, he’ll have to face the town’s past on his own. Arriving in the midst of the gore/torture trend (SAW, HOSTEL), DEAD SILENCE comes as a breath of fresh air. It’s nice to see that a horror movie can still use gore with discretion and deliver a fright through old-fashioned scare tactics and a premise as simple as a ghost story.
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