If you ask me, it doesn’t pay to be a dummy — a ventriloquist’s dummy, that is.

For one thing, he’s made of wood, and for another, he spends his entire existence being manipulated by someone else.

This occurred to me the other night while watching a movie from a few years ago called “Dead Silence.”

It wasn’t my first choice, but after several minutes of channel surfing and coming across offerings like “The Curse of the Werewolf,” “Mummy Massacre” and “Friday the 13th parts 1-45,” I came to the conclusion that in late October scary movies dominate and I wasn’t likely to find anything better.

Without going into much detail — trust me, I’m doing you a big favor — the premise of the movie dealt with an evil female ventriloquist named Mary Shaw. Apparently amid suspicion that she had killed a heckler at one of her shows, Shaw had been gorily disposed of by angry town’s people. I wonder what it is about living in town that makes folks so cranky?

Shaw returns from the grave decades later and seeks bloody revenge on her executioners and their descendants.

Being a ventriloquist, in exacting said revenge she understandably utilized the tools of her trade, i.e. her dummies.

Mary’s dummy du jour was named Billy, which is not a particularly sinister moniker, if you ask me. If I were inclined to unleash an evil dummy on folks, I think I’d call it something foreboding like, I don’t know, Ivan the Terrible or Vlad the Impaler. (I know, the really good names are already taken).

Billy’s appearance was pretty much in keeping with his name — bland. Sporting a dark suit, bow tie, shiny black shoes and a crew cut, he projected all the terror of a certified public accountant. Despite this, murder and mayhem followed the little guy everywhere he went.

Maybe I’m overthinking things — incredibly intelligent people tend to do that, you know — but I just can’t figure out the mechanics of “death by dummy.”

I mean, throughout the entire course of the movie the only part of the thing that moved were its eyes. Every once in a while the camera would pan to the wooden CPA-wannabe, showing his baby blues sliding ever-so-slowly from side to side.

Maybe I’ve seen enough horror movies to have become desensitized, but I just don’t find anything particularly terrifying about a dummy with a lazy eye. In fact, halfway through the movie, I found myself wondering how he might benefit from laser treatment.

All things considered, I think Billy got a bum rap.

Anyone watching the movie could easily see that the true mastermind behind the dastardly diabolical dummy-induced deeds was indeed not Billy, but Mary, the vile ventriloquist.

Life just goes that way, sometimes.

Mary Shaw and Billy are fictional characters dreamed up by screen writers, thank goodness.

Still, we could learn an important spiritual lesson from both.

The devil is a lot like Mary, employing clever wiles to manipulate people through a variety of sins.

If you’re tired of being used, give your life to Jesus.

Prove that you’re no dummy.