Coventry Review of The Silence of the Hams

The Silence of the Hams (1994)

About as funny as dying from Syphilis

[1/10 · 19 July 2006]

The only thing you can do whilst watching (no…STRUGGLING yourself through) "Silence of the Hams" is (re-) realizing how brilliant and sophisticated movies like "Airplane", "Hot Shots" and "The Naked Gun" in fact are. Now those movies are funny and witty parodies, whereas this rubbish is simply a spitfire of unbelievable lame jokes and painfully retarded references towards great horror classics. I can't even believe that I watched the whole thing, as five minutes into the movie already makes damn clear that it's not going to get any better. There's not one, even remotely, funny line in Ezzio Greggio's script and I honestly wonder how on earth he managed to mobilize people to join his stupid little project. It's a good thing that he appeared in the movie himself; otherwise I would have assumed that an anonymous army of illiterate monkeys made up the whole thing. There're basically just two types of "gags" in this movie: literal interpretations (or misinterpretations) of the stuff characters are saying ("I can take the bus right outside my apartment!" And, oh yes, the bus stops in the hallway...ha ha ha) or completely over-the-top imitations of classic sequences. The type of imaginations small children would make if they were watching a movie they're too young to understand. Greggio mainly focuses on "Silence of the Lambs" and "Psycho", but several poor other classics are undeservedly downgraded. The funniest thing about "Silence of the Hams" is Billy Zane's character name (Joe Dee Foster) and honestly every other joke falls flat. The worst thing is that Greggio doesn't even seem to care about this and mindlessly continues bringing more crap. The last ten minutes, I came really close to stabbing my eyes out with whatever sharp object that was near to me. It's utterly incomprehensible that acclaimed stars like Mel Brooks ("Young Frankenstein") and John Astin ("The Addams Family") agreed to make a guest appearance. They must know that this crap is inferior to their own work, or maybe that's just why they accepted it. Avoid this like you'd avoid going to the dentist.