Carey Van Dyke

Review: The Silence echoes better films, but you'll watch it anyway

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 29th April 2019

I feel like I've decoded the Voynich manuscript. Something seemed off about The Silence but for the longest time I couldn't put my finger on it. It's a noticeably cheap-looking film - a continuation of the worrying Netflix trend of picking things up that are, shall we say, 'Poundland versions of proper films' - but has a decent enough cast. The intrigue deepened. So I looked it up and suddenly everything fell into place: it was written by Shane and Carey Van Dyke of the Van Dyke dynasty, purveyors of the infamously terrible Asylum 'mockbusters' which were funny for five minutes in 2006. I don't know exactly how these things work with a dozen production companies and distributors and whatnot, but I do know what Netflix have done here is they've rebadged a film that was probably destined for The SyFy Channel. And as everyone knows you can't polish a turd. Believe me I've tried, it goes everywhere.

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