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.
In “Dead Silence,” 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 Donnie 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 pace, setting up the back story 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.
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“Dead Silence”
R for horror violence and images|1 hour, 30 minutes|HORROR| Directed by James Wan; written by Wan and Leigh Whannell; photography by John R. Leonetti; starring Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, Michael Fairman, Joan Heney, Bob Gunton, Laura Regan|Opened Friday at area theaters
