Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, the team that delivered the diabolically-clever modern horror classic Saw, is back with Dead Silence, a ghost story laced with a handful of homicidal Charlie McCarthys. While not a spectacular genre entry, this film at least includes a  number of bright spots and a drive to do something very different that places it leagues above recent horror offerings like The Messengers and The Abandoned.

Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) is an average guy living an average life, happily married to his wife (Laura Regan). All's well, until the night he comes home from picking up take-out to find his wife brutally murdered -- and with no signs of forced entry, the grizzled Detective Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg) pegs him as the prime suspect. Suspecting that the murder may have something to do with an old ventriloquist's dummy that arrived on his doorstep hours before the killing, Jamie heads back to his hometown of Ravens Fair, a ghost town still held in fear by the legend of Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts), a dead woman with a massive doll collection whose ghost is said to be responsible for countless deaths throughout the years. But the closer Jamie gets into investigating Mary Shaw's background, the more strange occurrences happen to him, the result of an evil supernatural force targeting him for the town's latest gruesome death.

Dead Silence features a concept that's extremely tricky to deal with, even in the hands of a real horror pro. With a lesser director at the helm, this could have been a much cheezier story about killer dummies wreaking havoc on a slew of B-list actors, but Wan and Whannell help Dead Silence shine a bit more. The most notable aspect of the film involves the way it looks: compared to a lot of horror flicks with grungy settings and dank cinematography, Dead Silence is visually fantastic. The camera captures the story's creepy aura by dousing the setting in grays and providing fluid movement throughout the desolate burg of Ravens Fair. I dug the scarcity of gore here. Wan and company know when to hold back and when to throw a tongueless corpse onto the screen. Also, the score is well-done, and the film boasts a fairly nifty twist ending. Because Dead Silence is such a radically-different film than Saw, you might be lulled into forgetting it was made by the same guys. Fortunately, they still know how to get a last-minute jolt in before the credits roll.

Still, Dead Silence has its share of negative elements. The acting isn't the most pristine, with Wahlberg giving the best performance as your run-of-the-mill Cop with an Attitude. The dummies aren't utilized all that well, and when Wan does put the creepy little buggers in the spotlight, they transform into one-trick ponies. Inanimate dolls can move their eyes only so many times before losing the fright factor. With its repetitive script, the movie might have been better off as a 30-minute short. It's intermittenly freaky, no doubt about that, but for as many times as it retreads over territory already covered, Dead Silence could have used a few snips in the editing room. 

Those expecting another Saw may be sorely disappointed with Dead Silence, and viewers eager for a consistently fulfilling horror experience may  also be let down. However, because this film lands as many hits as misses, it ends up being a decent genre offering worth catching on DVD.

MY RATING: ** 1/2 (out of ****)

(Released by Universal Pictures and rated "R" for horror violence and images.)