Few people can argue that clowns are creepy and, for most people, right below clowns are ventriloquist dummies. The creators of “Saw” decided to make a horror movie/ghost story about an female ventriloquist, Mary Shaw, and her hundreds of freaky looking dummies. For the most part, it works. It gives the audience the heebie-jeebies and produces a few good scares.

The film begins with the pretty, young wife of the film’s hero, Jamie, being killed by a dummy that was just left at the couple’s door. Jamie goes to his hometown of Ravens Fair, a place that has been haunted by the stories of Mary Shaw and her dummies, to see just what is going on and why someone would send a dummy to his house and then kill his wife. He finds lots of strange things, like Mary Shaw’s grave and a hundred of little graves for her “children” (the dummies). He has weird dreams involving the dummies and Mary Shaw and luckily remembers that if you see Mary in your dreams and you scream, she’ll rip your tongue out.

I know, this all sounds pretty dumb, but Leigh Whannell and James Wan, the writer and director, do a decent job of taking their subject seriously and building some suspense. I also give them some points for doing it with practically no gore, no foul language and no nudity. It is one of the tamest ‘R’ rated movies I have seen in quite awhile. You would think that people losing tongues would be gross, but it is never really shown and the aftermath is bloodless. The split second shots they do show just look like really scary Halloween masks.

“Dead Silence” is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not bad for what it is and the plot twist at the end definitely bumps things up a notch or two. If you like scary movies, it is worth a look.

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