Dead SilenceMovie Reviews

Poster art for "Dead Silence."

Gifts + Promos

Fandango Gift Card

Give the gift of movies with Fandango Bucks Gift Certificates! Design your own gift card, or choose from our collection.

Avengers Gift Cards

Superhero fans! Don’t miss out on these Limited Edition Avengers gift cards!

Need Help?
No
Avg. Critic Score: 34 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 50
    The Onion A.V. Club | Scott Tobias

    Again coaxing the worst imaginable performances out of his actors (see also: Cary Elwes and Danny Glover in "Saw"), Wan casts charisma-free unknown Ryan Kwanten as a young married man whose small-town past catches up to him. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Frank Scheck

    Boasts nothing new under the sun, but it does provide a few decent scares. Read full review

  • 50
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    This new movie is a more credible, less grisly act of filmmaking , but it's a less compelling exercise. It doesn't have the ruthless moral reasoning of the first two "Saw" pictures, however grotesque and specious that reasoning was. But it does have a plot that revolves around a ventriloquist and her demon doll. Read full review

  • 50
    Entertainment Weekly | Scott Brown

    Terrified of puppets? Enjoy being scared? Then you'll be half-satisfied with Dead Silence, a rote horror pantomime. Read full review

  • 40
    Village Voice |

    Dolls are innately unnerving, but the movie's semi-menacing Charlie McCarthys never live up to their potential. As creaky nonsense goes, though, this is chock-full of corny goodness down to its hilarious sense-shredding "twist," which the movie reveals like a magician proudly unveiling a dead rabbit. Read full review

  • 40
    Austin Chronicle | Marc Savlov

    Wan does manage to infuse his film with some of the subtle unsubtleties of classic Euro-horror outings, chief among them the palpable, dreamlike sense of dislocation and the abiding severance from reality that tends to make nongenre fans wonder if someone spiked their popcorn with LSD. Read full review

  • 30
    Variety |

    Only those in a cold sweat for their weekly horror fix will bother with this formulaic and rather lazy exercise in booga-booga scare tactics. Read full review

  • 30
    The New York Times |

    The director, James Wan, and the writer, Leigh Whannell (the team behind the controversially brutal "Saw" series), deliver the mandatory shocks and gross-outs, backed by dissonant bursts of music and made almost elegant by the cinematographer John R. Leonetti's desaturated images. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    There's no attempt at humor in Dead Silence, but the biggest sin in the film is the lack of scares. Read full review

  • 0
    Los Angeles Times |

    A conflation of the horror genre's laziest tropes, plot angles and shorthands, this inept creation isn't so much a film as it is a smorgasbord. Read full review

View more reviews for Dead Silence on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ A Nightmare on Dummy St. from Saw creators.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this horror movie shows grotesque image of corpses with mouths open and tongues torn out. The violence is shown in quick, nightmarish flashes (it's a ghostly curse doing it, after all, not human handiwork), and is very intense. A young boy is prominent among victims. Other imagery plays on people's worst fears of creepy ventriloquist dummies, dolls, mannequins, marionettes, and clowns -- this could definitely give smaller kids and other sensitive viewers nightmares.
  • Families can talk about the movie's retro horror style with the use of dry-ice fog, nearly black-and-white cinematography, the exaggerated cop character -- even the absence of swearing and sex in the film. Ask your kids why they think the filmmakers decided to hearken back to this more innocent era? How does the movie compare to old Universal Pictures horror movies with Frankenstein's monster, the Wolf Man, Dracula, and others? Why are people creeped out (or not) by dummies and dolls?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: None of the characters are terribly well developed, but the main character is evidently a good husband trying to get justice for his slain wife. His good intentions don't prevent a downbeat fate. His aged, invalid father has married repeatedly, lately settling (apparently) for much younger bride.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Victims of the ghost have their tongues torn out -- though the gory deed happens in "supernatural" bursts of speed, so (usually) the worst we see are quick glimpses of the ghastly corpses that result. One victim vomits up blood. Others fall from great heights through floorboards. There is a quick-cut of a lynch mob about to kill and mutilate a woman with a razor. Dead bodies include children.
  • sex false0 Sex: Some very mild innuendo between young marrieds.
  • language false3 Language: "Hell," "ass," and the very beginning of an F-word.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: None, except a quick inside-joke reference to the Saw movies.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Not an issue
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Looking for more reviews? Movies.com Critics Say:

Dave White

4.0

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

… consistently surprising. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

Read more movie reviews at Movies.com

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook