Dead Silence was a Sign of Things to Come (and Also Pretty Awful)

Leigh Whannell and James Wan have had perhaps the biggest influence out of any other creators on the horror genre in the 21st century.

From Saw, to The Conjuring, to Insidious, to my beloved Malignant, their movies – but as collaborators and as solo creators – it’s hard to think of a pair who’ve helped define the direction of the horror genre in the last twenty years more than these two have. But there’s one movie of their’s that stands out as a low point in their illustrious careers. And that movie, of course, is Dead Silence.

Dead Silence came out in 2007, a rush job put together by the studio to capitalize on the success of 2004’s Saw and the sequel which came out the same year. Written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan, Dead Silence follows a recently bereaved widower (Ryan Kwanten) as he returns to his hometown to get to the bottom of his wife’s evil-haunted-doll-related death. No, not the Annabel kind – the ventriloquist dummy kind.

Yes, it’s a blatant rip-off of Slappy the Doll from the Goosebumps series. And not a very good one at that: Ryan Kwanten, who was quite the hot property at the time due to his starring role in True Blood (in which he is perfectly cast and actually really fun), is not a good leading man here, and, paired with Donnie Wahlberg as a detective investigating the strange goings-on in the town doesn’t exactly enhance his turn. It’s a strange script, swithering between outrageously camp and quite entertaining and drudgingly self-serious and dull, and the actors never seem to entirely know what to do with it. The dolls themselves are appropriately unsettling, and, though I know it’s not exactly well-considered, I really love the very stupid twist at the end – but there’s no denying that this is one of the worst of Whannell and Wan’s respective careers, and by far the least impressive of their collaborations.

But it’s got so many of the hallmarks of what would make their later work great, and for that reason alone, I think Dead Silence is a really interesting watch. The investigative elements of the Conjuring series, the family-driven story of Insidious, and the twist of camp in Malignant and Upgrade to keep things from getting too serious, down to the creepy doll serving as the movie’s main image, just like Annabelle would; it almost feels like a testing ground for what would be so successful in their movies to come.

Yes, it’s a rough flick, but when taken in context of the rest of their careers, it feels like a false start more than it does a total failure. Looking back at it now, it’s actually an impressive testament to how much both of them have honed their craft and their skills in telling these kinds of stories. Well, and getting better leading men than Ryan Kwanten.

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By Lou MacGregor

(header image via YouTube)