With Dead Silence, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the director and writer responsible for the ultra-violent Saw, have created a mild, mechanical slasher flick short on gore and scares. They bring the ventriloquist dummy back to the horror genre and it's an ideal pairing -- on paper. You have to go back to 1978's Magic, which starred Anthony Hopkins as a ventriloquist whose doll takes on a murderous life of his own, to find a profoundly frightening example.

The Child's Play and The Puppetmaster films have successfully mined a variation on the theme. Pure ventriloquism classics are few and far between however. One reason might be that the psychological issues tend to take over the material, squeezing out any mayhem. Indeed, Whannell and Wan seem to be shooting for atmospheric mystery and artificial plot twists when you'd like them to stick to unbridled, squirm-inducing terror.

The opening title montage hints at the quest to build the perfect doll -- a theme revisited only at the very end of the movie -- and we read about the alleged 6th-century origin of the word "ventriloquist" that likewise isn't linked to the main action.

In their city apartment, Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) and wife Lisa (Laura Regan) are trying to decide what to have for dinner when a package turns up on their doorstep containing a ventriloquist's dummy. Jamie, who we soon discover should know better, goes out to pick up Chinese food, returning to find Lisa dead and her tongue ripped out.

After being questioned by police, he drives to his hometown of Ravens Fair ("A quiet place to live") to investigate. Incidentally, the doll, named Billy, rides in the backseat; Jamie doesn't even bother to pack it in its suitcase. And a suspicious, angry homicide detective (Donnie Wahlberg) follows his prime suspect -- Jamie not Billy.

Jamie's decision to leave his wife unchaperoned with Billy -- and to buckle the dummy in the back of his car -- is puzzling since he's aware that a famous local legend concerns a deceased ventriloquist named Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts). He'll have to reckon with her revenge and her collection of dolls.

His other big mistake is not noticing that something is amiss with his estranged, wheel-chair bound father (Bob Gunton), who looks and dresses exactly like Billy and has a hot young wife (Amber Valletta). Though it's tempting to focus on Jamie's density and to ridicule Kwanten's performance as wooden, once he discovers that the Ashens have a history with Ms. Shaw and her dolls, he's brave enough to address the situation head on at her abandoned vaudeville theater.

Again, there's promise in the general concept and plenty of opportunity for some gruesome turns at the local mortuary, in the cemetery, and in the gothic pile dad calls home. But the script is pure hokum despite a satisfyingly bleak ending. Director Wan trots out hackneyed horror effects -- disembodied voices and predictable amounts of fog, rain and lightening -- in the service of mystery rather than frights.

Dead Silence really doesn't warrant an "R" rating. It lacks cursing and nudity and is relatively free of gruesome sequences, with most of the violence taking place off-screen. The sadism of Saw is certainly nowhere to be found. Although the movie's tagline is "You Scream. You Die.," not even the most timid moviegoer will feel they're in jeopardy.

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