I'll tear you a new puppethole!

The Movie: Dead Silence, directed by James Wan
Recommendation: Broomie, and everyone else I've ever made watch a dumb horror movie that nevertheless terrifies them by playing to their deepest fears.
Reason: It's a dumb horror movie that nevertheless terrifies me and plays to my deepest fears.

To simplify, the uncanny valley is a term initially used by robotics engineers to refer to the human response to robotics and other non-human creations. Essentially, after a certain threshold, the more human something seems, the more repulsed humans are by it. I like to think that the uncanny valley applies to puppets and dolls, and this explains why they terrify me. Honestly, Dead Silence wasn't all that scary (though neat in its gimmicks), but every time that stupid ventriloquist dummy moved, I shuddered. So there you have it. I'm scared of dolls. I actually looked away during one scene, in which the main character is driving with the stupid dummy in the back of his car. Nothing happened. The doll didn't come to life. But the thought of one of those...things sitting right behind you, just staring...eugh.

Freaky puppets and my own fears aside, the movie didn't offer much in terms of plot. It was straightforward, pretty much what I expected. It reminded me a little of one of my little guilty pleasures, Darkness Falls, without being as 'good' as Darkness Falls. I'm aware that 'good' is subjective, and there aren't many people other than me who were as entertained by said homicidal tooth fairy, but I was. So there. Dead Silence had a similar sensibility about it, a sort of childishness, transposed onto adults. Instead of 'don't go into the dark or she'll get you', it became 'don't scream or she'll get you'.

The acting wasn't phenomenal, nor was it sub-par. There was a Wahlberg brother, who provided the usual sort of comic-relief (and in the last act, sort of spoke for the audience). The lead was...alright. As mentioned, not great. The actress who played his girlfriend was the lead actress from They, another movie that preyed upon childhood fears. Overall, this wasn't a bad way to kill some time, but I'd leave it to the cheap theaters.

-89/365 down, 276/365 to go