2007's Dead Silence? Dead Stupid.

I'd hit it.

This is Jack Burton in the Pork Chop Express, and I'm talkin' to whoever's listenin' out there.

Rewound to a few years and caught the 2007 film, Dead Silence after rave reviews from several friends. Now, I’m a horror fan. I enjoy getting scared. I enjoy creepy. I like the jumps, the goosebumps, whatever. And best of all, it doesn’t take much to scare me. Maybe Dead Silence is one of those films you’ve gotta watch with others, or in the theater. I don’t know. All’s I know is that this is one bad film. And I don’t mean Michael Jackson in the 80s bad, I mean Michael Jackson in a daycare bad.

I’ll keep this short since the film’s been out for several years. In short: what the fuck? Dead Silence is an amalgam of stupid plot holes, silly goings-on, and just head-scratching developments. Ever watch a film and the people around you are screaming at the screen, wondering why the fuck the protagonist is doing certain things? Yeah that was me when I watched Dead Silence. I don’t suppose this should be a surprise, considering the film comes from the minds of the idiots that brought you the Saw franchise, another unbelievable, plot hole-ridden waste of film.

The story’s simple, the twist even stupider. Jamie receives a ventriloquist doll in the mail, his wife is brutally killed, and the investigation focuses on Jamie (naturally). Okay, I’m on board. He searches the box in which the doll arrived, finds out that it came from his hometown. Then, inexplicably, he thinks his estranged father has some information for him. He doesn’t. Well, with the help of Henry, the local undertaker, Jamie discovers that the spirit of Mary Shaw has cursed his family and is hunting each member and their spouses down and killing them, ripping out their tongues in the process. And the only way to not die is to not scream when she’s about to not kill you.

As the story progressed, I found myself wondering when the fuck it would just end. The twist ending was simple and pretty much any idiot can figure it out if they think about it for a second. Why would the film introduce such useless characters as Jamie’s father and the new, young step-mother if they weren’t going to play a larger role by the end? Duh.

Visually, Mary Shaw is a scary looking babe. (See photo above). I don’t think I’d be too pleased to have my tongue ripped out by her. But is she iconic? No. The filmmakers make stupid films that actually seem to talk down to their audience. They don’t seem to make any sense. For instance, the theater where Mary Shaw lived in life is now flooded and surrounded by a moat and abandoned. Cool. But who the fuck thought to put rowboats in there? And to leave them there? And once inside, it seems like nobody’s been there to vandalize, screw around, live, squat, or whatever. Yeah, right. A potentially haunted, creepy-ass building, and nobody’s been in there, even though it’s easily accessed with conveniently-placed rowboats. And it’s apparently so remote that none of Mary Shaw’s things have been touched since her death decades ago.

Cue eye rolls. Skip film. That is all. Till next time, Pork Chop Express is signing off.