James Wan, the Malaysian-born director who made in big in Hollywood with his Saw films, has returned to the screen with his first non-Saw flick Dead Silence. Unfortunately, his new chiller is less than chilling, although the move away from the spectacular gore seen in the Saw films is something of a plus point.

Bland actor Ryan Kwanten plays a newly-wed who returns home one day to find his wife brutally murdered. He blames the ventriloquist's dummy which was recently left on the doorstep of his home. Of course, the police refuses to believe him.

Hoping to get to bottom of the mystery, Ryan returns to the hometown and learns about a female ventriloquist who was accused of murdering a young boy and was eventually killed buried with her numerous dolls. Could it be her spirit that has returned to kill more?

Unfortunately, Dead Silence has too many cobwebbed cellars, dark shadows and cheap scares to give you the "been-here-seen-this" feeling. James Wan has certainly tried to depart from his usual bag of Saw tricks, but he's done so by stealing from the generic bag of horror tricks � not a good idea.

Between this and Saw 2, we'll take the latter.