Written by Jennifer
March 17, 2009
We all know the legend of Mary Shaw, the crazy ventriloquist who tortured and killed a boy in the 1940's just because he yelled, "I can see your lips moving!"
We all know the legend of Mary Shaw, the crazy ventriloquist who tortured and killed a boy in the 1940's just because he yelled, "I can see your lips moving!" Well, maybe we don't all know the legend of Mary Shaw, but the people of Ravens Fair sure do, and they're not talking. Know why? Because if you talk about Mary Shaw, you DIE! Woo ha ha ha ha!
Dead Silence begins in the apartment of a cute young couple who are just trying to figure out what to do about dinner. Right about the time Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) has decided to go for take-out, the doorbell rings and someone delivers a ventriloquist's dummy in its very own casket. Wow, isn't that funny?
Instead of freaking out and throwing the whole thing in a dumpster, Jamie and Lisa (Laura Regan) just laugh and goof around with the stupid thing until Jamie heads out to get the food. While he's away, Lisa sets the dummy up on their bed, makes it comfortable with a special pillow, and promises to give it seven minutes in heaven with her Barbie doll. She laughs, then covers it over with a sheet, because even though it's this much fun, she doesn't really want to look at it.
The next thing you know, the dummy is attacking and Lisa is dead on the floor with her face ripped off. Naturally Jamie is quite distraught when he gets home, but he's also a suspect. Pretty soon he's got Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block breathing down his neck and repeatedly mentioning how perplexed he is by this very fishy situation. I can only think "perplexed" was on Donnie's Word of the Day Calendar that morning, and he couldn't wait to use it in a sentence... about 600 times.
In an attempt to clear his name and avenge his wife's death, Jamie sets out to solve the murder. Every lead seems to culminate in someone's face being ripped off or a showdown with a dummy. In one instance, he and Donnie face off against an underground gallery of dummies, bringing down dozens of dolls with bullets and flames... right before Donnie gets his face ripped off. Are you noticing a pattern here?
Jamie slowly begins to understand his family's connection to Mary Shaw, but even he can't predict what happens next. Gosh, could it possibly involve a dummy and, oh, I don't know, Jamie getting his face ripped off? Despite its flimsy storyline, the movie isn't as unbearable as it could be. It's not half as gory as I expected, and I rather enjoyed laughing at the absurd situations that arose.
Unfortunately, the ending ruined it all for me. My worthless ex-boyfriend used to think it was pretty funny to come home from a movie and announce, "Everybody died!" even if he was describing Shrek. That joke got old as soon as it was out of his mouth, but with the preponderance of movies like Final Destination and Saw, apparently Hollywood doesn't see it that way.
