Instant Favorite.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Not to be confused with James Wan's 2007 'Dead Silence', this is the 1991 TV movie about the consequences of one very wrong decision. Great premise and really good acting. The character development was excellent. It was interesting to see how each one's attitude changed as more evidence about the accident surfaced, and how the authorities got closer and closer to the truth. This is definitely a way underrated film.

**SPOILERS** Driving south to Plam Springs to spend Spring Break the three UPNW, University Pacific North West, collage students Zanna Joanie & Sunnie, Renee Estevez Lisanne Falk & Carrie Mitchum, expect to have nothing but a good time in the Pacific Coast town. With Sunnie a top reporter back at her collage newspaper landing a job at the local TV station KLCA channel 8.Renting a car and getting a bit drunk the girls later take a ride out in the desert with Sunnie behind the wheel. Taking her eyes of the road for just a second, with Zanna and Joani horsing around, Sunnie hits a homeless hitch-hiker who after going thorough the windshield falls to the ground dead. The three girls panic-stricken at what happened and how it would effect their lives, Sunnie already had a DWI conviction, and their future as law students don't do the right thing and report the accident right away to the state police.The movie "Dead Silence" shows how trying to hide a crime, hit and run, and live without any feelings or consideration for the person that was killed, treating him as if he were just road kill, in the end catches up with those involved. The accident causes more hurt heartbreak and even, in the case of poor and terrified Jaonie, suicide for the girls then if they just turned themselves in and let the chips, and the law, fall where they may. Not that the girls were insensitive toward the poor homeless man they just felt that their future was far more important, since they were alive, then the hitch-hikers, who's life was dead and buried in the empty and broiling desert.Joanie feeling a bit queasy about the fate of the hitch-hiker, wondering if his body was discovered , goes to the scene of the accident to see if the hitch-hikers body was still there, it wasn't. With the windshield of the car fixed to hide the proof that the car was in an accident it became obvious that it was since it didn't have an ID number on it, the new windshield, which all rented cars have.Time passes, three months, and eventually the hitch-hikers remains are found by the state police. As they slowly put all the pieces, and bones, together the clues reach all the way up north to the University of the Pacific North West and Joanie Reducci who's paper trail from renting the car, that killed the unfortunate hitch-hiker, lead straight to her dormitory door.Only Sunnie who had the most to loose, she was employed as a Plam Beach TV reporter, and the person who was driving the car when it hit and killed the hitch-hiker was willing to turn herself in to the police. Zanna not wanting to end up behind bars and lose her chance to be a member of the state bar,that a criminal record would disqualify her from practicing law, tries to manipulate both her friends Sunnie and Joanie into not turning themselves. This cause Joanie to have a serious emotional breakdown that leads to her killing herself by jumping off the roof, of the hotel that she and Zanna were staying at, and into the hotel swimming pool.Zanna still trying to make a deal with the police to save her freedom and career implicates her best friend Sunnie in the hitch-hikers death even though Sunnie was just about to turn herself in! By Zanna doing that, ratting out Sunnie before she gave herself up, gave the desperate Zanna immunity from prosecution. With one friend, Joanie, driven to her death and another, Sunnie, facing prison and nothing to look forward to when she gets out Zanna now has all the time in the world to reflect on what she did. By her doing everything to keep from going to the police that lead to her two friends ending up even worse off then the homeless nameless and dead hitch-hiker, that they left in the lonely and inhospitable Western Desert.

Good news, folks. I checked, these two screen writers have no other credits on IMBD. This script flat out sucks. It's the suckiest suck that has ever sucked. Unless you were like me and got tricked into watching this crap consider yourself extremely lucky. This is a movie of the week and is therefore written for drooling morphidites in the country's dirtiest prisons, but this isn't even good enough for death row inmates.

This well-acted TV movie really surprised me. I expected a typical "spring-break" pseudo-horror film, but was drawn into a psychological tale of conscience fighting fear. Three young, attractive co-eds are vacationing before college graduation when something horrific happens to them; the mitigating circumstances cause them to make disastrous moral and ethical choices. Mitchum and Estevez (granddaughter of Robert and daughter of Martin Sheen, respectively) are fine but Falk shines as the most conflicted and least culpaple of the protagonists. The minuses: A tv movie is a tv movie is a tv movie- well, you get the picture. Again, all the more to my surprise that this picture acquitted itself nicely, despite the low budget and lack of name stars. The Corkymeter says 3 and a half stars (out of 5).