Movie review: 'Dead Silence' delivers goosebumps

By Colin Covert, Star Tribune

Last update: March 16, 2007 - 2:02 PM

The creators of "Saw," director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, trade gore for goosebumps in their latest collaboration, a gothic chiller in which morbid atmospherics and simmering suspense build to an ingenious third-act climax.

Ryan Kwanten plays Jamie, a young widower under investigation for the murder of his wife, who was mysteriously slashed while he was on a fast food run. He thinks the wooden dummy delivered to his door shortly before is somehow connected to the crime.

Working with a much larger budget than the lo-fi "Saw" series, Wan gives the film a clever sound design, dropping out a scene's ambient noises during moments of tension, and a look of macabre graveyard rot. .

The film's casting works against it. Kwanten is a hunk, but no actor, while the engaging Wahlberg, who is coming to resemble the early Warren Oates, makes off with every scene. And the pace needs tightening; it crawls along at garden slug velocity, laboriously setting up the backstory almost until the end.

Patient viewers will be rewarded, though. There's a major, and cleverly positioned plot twist at the finale that adds another layer to the film's charnel house chills. "Dead Silence" may not earn many full-throated screams but its shockeroo will doubtless win quite a few whistles of admiration.