Dead Silence (2007)
Directed by James Wan
Jamie returns to his hometown in search of answers to his wife's murder, which occurred after receiving a weird package containing a ventriloquist dummy named Billy, which may be linked to the legend of ventriloquist Mary Shaw. Destined to find out the truth, Jamie goes to the town of Raven's Fair, where Shaw used to perform and is buried. But Jamie is in for more than he expected.
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What critics compared Dead Silence to
Better yet, his second feature, Dead Silence , for which The Conjuring frankly feels like an apology at times, as though he understood why each element of DS went wrong, and knew how to fix it, and did so.
While it owes an obvious debt to the likes of “The Exorcist,” “Poltergeist” and “ The Amityville Horror ” (itself inspired by the Warrens’ most famous case), this exuberantly creepy supernatural shocker is in many ways the film Wan has been working toward his whole career; it not only incorporates elements from his 2007 demon-doll thriller “Dead Silence” and his 2010 haunted-house saga “Insidious,” which felt like a warm-up exercise by comparison, but also taps into the sly, self-aware vein of humor that has long been one of Wan’s trademarks.
Invoking Dario Argento’s baroque operas ( Saw ), demon-doll movies ( Dead Silence ) and ghost-house horrors ( Insidious ), Wan’s filmography is nothing if not derivative.
The involvement of James Wan may explain the film’s ability to embrace and obtain enjoyment from the expected, as the director of Saw, Dead Silence and Insidious offers up his fifth horror effort.
2007's Dead Silence, for example, was a mostly gore-free ghost story where the boogeyman was a squad of possesses ventriloquists dolls, while 2010's Insidious channeled the spooky '80s favorite Poltergeist in its depiction of a young child seduced by forces from the other side.
It comes from director James Wan, a guy who started his career with Saw but has spent a lot of time since then paying homage to old-school horror thrillers with efforts like Dead Silence, the aforementioned Insidious, and its impending sequel.
While it’s possible that Annabelle might give a few audience members goose bumps, anyone who’s ever seen Rosemary’s Baby – or pretty much any film James Wan’s had a hand in since helming 2007’s Dead Silence, the Saw franchise excepted – will figure out what’s going on within the first 30 minutes.
But he’d been director of photography for James Wan since 2007’s Dead Silence, so it was a case of “just maybe.”
It's certainly not in the Chucky devil-doll class, or even close to producer James Wan's own Dead Silence.
Indeed, John R. Leonetti, a cinematographer with limited directing credits who worked closely with Wan in the past ( Dead Silence , Insidious ), doesn’t understand the building of dread, layer by layer.
In that way, he reminds me of a younger James Wan, who asserted himself as a master at tension with movies like "The Conjuring" and "Saw," while also proving he could have some fun with movies like "Dead Silence."
According to the production notes, Wan — the man who wrote and directed the first “Saw,” and went on to give horror fans such notables as “Insidious,” “Dead Silence” and “The Conjuring” — supervised much of the proceedings for “Lights Out.”
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But the director James Wan and the screenwriter Leigh Whannell have made enough horror thrillers, separately and together (the first Saw and Dead Silence were theirs; Wan made this summer’s sleeper hit The Conjuring), to have figured out how to keep improving them.
For over the last 12 years, he’s been the driving force behind numerous great horror films (I’m even a sucker for his criminally underrated Dead Silence), and he even rose to the gargantuan challenge that came with helming last year’s Furious 7.
I have championed Wan’s horror pictures from Dead Silence (2007) through Insidious (2010), Insidious Chapter 2 (2013) and, to a lesser extent, The Conjuring (2013).
Wan’s fans – and even those who aren’t so hot on the man behind the edgy goregasm Saw, Dead Silence, and two Insidious films – know all too well that Mr. Wan wants to give audiences 1970s-style spookshows, redolent of The Exorcist, Robert Wise’s underrated Audrey Rose, and similar disquieting fare.
Although director James Wan does a nice job of infusing Dead Silence with an expectedly stylish sensibility, the film is ultimately nowhere nearly as compelling as his breakthrough debut (2004's Saw) - a vibe that can be attributed primarily to the lackluster storyline and star Ryan Kwanten's decidedly uncharismatic performance.
First and foremost comes " The Conjuring ," the scariest movie in eons, and no surprise that director James Wan ("Insidious," "Dead Silence," the original "Saw") steers the spine-tingling helm.
Created by Leigh Whannell (who also worked on Saw and Dead Silence with Wan and directed the underappreciated Upgrade ), the first two films center on Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) and their children Dalton, Foster and Cali.
The creative duo had tried to birth another original horror hit with 2007’s Dead Silence but lost out to studio interference.
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James Wan’s obsession with dolls and ventriloquist dummies, which can be seen from Jigsaw in Saw to Billy in Dead Silence and Annabelle in Annabelle continues with a new titular doll in M3GAN.
Though the film is produced by James Wan (who previously dabbled with possessed puppets in “Saw,” “Dead Silence,” and “Annabelle”), the robo-dummy here isn’t aiming for a visually disturbing look; nevertheless, it’s difficult to dismiss the eerie line she treads with big-eyed cuteness and uncanny realism.
And puppets and marionettes have been an integral part of his cinema for about twenty years: he made his feature film debut with Saw – The Riddler , where the perfidious Jigsaw used a puppet, Billy, to communicate with his human guinea pigs; in 2007 he signed Dead Silence , on the posthumous revenge of a ventriloquist capable of demonically possessing his work tools; and since 2013, via The Conjuring franchise , has given the public an icon like Annabelle, a receptacle of evil forces that has the particularity of being highly frightening while never moving.
James Wan is the architect of Saw and The Conjuring Universe, both of which are multi-billion dollar horror properties, while he’s also been involved as a director, writer or executive producer on Dead Silence , Death Sentence , the Insidious series, Demonic and Lights Out .
This is the case of a chase in the Seattle Underground where the sets allow James Wan to stay in the gothic and hazy aesthetic operated since Dead Silence .
It’s nothing like you’d expect and unlikely to move ahead of Saw , Dead Silence , Insidious , or The Conjuring on lists of the best James Wan horror films.
More Saw and Dead Silence than The Conjuring and Insidious, James Wan’s Malignant takes a gruesome detour from mass appeal horror back into the land of subversive terror.
While Wallis does the heavy lifting in terms of creating an emotional connection with the audience, the film is bolstered exponentially by a standout performance from George Young who plays Detective Kekoa Shaw (there’s a Dead Silence Easter Egg for you hardcore Wan fans!).
Fortunately, this is not the days of Dead Silence (which I liked), as Wan has only improved as a director.