Retro-Shock Theater: Silent Rage (1982)

With the ‘80s action hero ensemble The Expendables 2 currently on theater screens worldwide, it’s worth remembering that most of these men of action have dabbled in horror over the years. Bruce Willis has the ghostly hit The Sixth Sense (1999) to his credit; Arnold Schwarzennegger went toe to toe with a tenacious space-spawned hunter in the classic sci-fi/horror hybrid Predator (1987) and took on Satan in End of Days (1999); Sylvester Stallone battled a serial killer in the little-seen Eye See You (1999) and some would say that his violent cop thriller Cobra (1986) rests comfortably on the periphery of the ‘80s slasher genre. But despite the various merits of those films, I have to single out the Chuck Norris vehicle Silent Rage (1982) as a true action/horror favorite.

In Silent Rage, directed by Michael Miller and written by Edward di Lorenzo and Joseph Fraley, Chuck plays Sheriff Dan Stevens, the head lawman of a small town who finds himself at war with a relentless human killing machine. Some would say that nature alone could never create a being powerful enough to go up against Chuck Norris and the makers of Silent Rage wholeheartedly agreed, making their unstoppable maniac (Brian Libby) the Godless product of scientists who commit the mistake of reviving a homicidal killer hovering on Death’s Door.

Not only is he granted a new lease on life, but thanks to the miracle of genetic engineering, this psycho can now withstand almost any form of physical harm. The “almost” is where Chuck Norris comes in. As Silent Rage begins we meet Libby’s character of John Kirby as he wakes up in the boarding house where he’s been staying. Kirby receives a concerned call from Tom Halman, his psychiatrist (Ron Silver), and during the brief call Kirby struggles to talk while fumbling in vain for his medication.

We sense that Kirby might be losing it – especially when he tells Halman “I’m losing it, Doc! I’m looosing it!” He then proceeds to lose it, chasing his landlady through the house with an axe (complete with a nod to The Shining as Kirby leers maniacally at the landlady through the hole in the door he’s just chopped through).

This homicidal outburst, naturally, brings Chuck onto the scene. While he has back up available in the flabby form of his devoted deputy Charlie (Stephen Furst, best known as Animal House’s “Flounder”), Chuck goes in alone like the one man army that he is and, after a prolonged fight, he puts Kirby in cuffs.

Unfortunately while waiting in the back of a cruiser, Kirby breaks free and the cops on the scene have no choice but to gun him down, much to the anguished protest of Halman, who arrives too late to spare his troubled patient.

Barely alive, Kirby is taken to the medical facility where Halman works and where, it just so happens, groundbreaking genetic research is being done (not the thing you’d expect to find in a small town, but whatever). Against Halman’s ethical protests, Kirby is revived by the ambitious and scientifically ruthless Dr. Philip Spires (Steven Keats) and Spires’ devoted toady, Dr. Paul Vaughn (genre regular William Finley).

Thanks to an injection of Spires’ experimental serum, Kirby is now virtually impervious to injury. Why Spires couldn’t have waited to give the gift of invincibility to someone who wasn’t a psychotic murderer, we don’t know, but scientists in movies are prone to making catastrophically bad decisions.

Once the new and improved Kirby gets his feet on the ground, he covertly exits the lab and pays a nighttime visit to Halman – and it’s not for a therapy session. The home invasion that follows as Kirby arrives at Halman’s isolated abode is Silent Rage’s horror centerpiece as the malevolent Kirby goes after both Halman and then Halman’s wife. The scene isn’t graphically gory but instead features expertly staged suspense (a prolonged pursuit is punctuated by a surprise head slam to the wall that effectively startles, even on repeated viewings).

The towering Libby is truly sinister as Kirby and he stands out as one of the more formidable movie maniacs of the ’80s. While the majority of Halloween and Friday the 13th rip-offs that were in theaters at the time made splatter FX their selling point, Silent Rage went light on gore but applied hard-hitting action to the slasher formula.

The climax to Halloween had Michael Myers shot off the second floor balcony of the Doyle home and fall with a heavy thud on the dirt of the Doyle’s backyard but in Silent Rage, Kirby is shot through the glass window of a medical facility and plummets about five floors down to the pavement and that’s just the start of an extended climatic battle between Kirby and Sheriff Stevens (one that sees Kirby undergo a head to toe burn similar to the one that Myers endures in Halloween II).

It might not have been any direct inspiration on trends to come but certainly the stunt-heavy nature of Silent Rage did anticipate the more action-oriented approach the slasher sub-genre adopted as the ’80s went on. Once the MPAA all but outlawed gore by the mid-‘80s, it left filmmakers little choice but to turn to action as a readily exploitable, and more easily MPAA sanctioned, element.

Latter day Halloween and Friday the 13th sequels were much more aligned with action cinema than the series’ earlier films had been. Witness scenes like Michael Myers battling gun-toting members of a Haddonfield posse while on the back of a speeding pick-up truck in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), the spectacular RV crash that Jason survives in 1986’s Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, or even the wink to the James Bond series seen in that film’s title sequence.

The final frames of Silent Rage left the gate wide open for a Silent Rage 2 but sadly a sequel never came about. Either the film wasn’t regarded as a big enough hit (it grossed just under $11 million in US theaters) or else Norris was simply on to bigger things as his career was moving into its peak years with hits like Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), Code of Silence (1985), and others.

Norris is regarded these days as something of a camp character – especially by younger fans who, thanks to late night host Conan O’Brien, think of him first and foremost from the long running TV series Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001) – but Silent Rage is a good example of the straight-forward B-fare he originally made his name on.

As a reminder of an earnest exploitation era when slasher films and Chuck Norris pictures were two of the best reasons to go to the movies, Silent Rage endures as a satisfying and high-kicking genre hybrid.

Originally published on 8/31/12 at Shock Till You Drop.

Silent Rage

Michael Myers might be a horror icon and all but don't you think he made his reputation the easy way? I mean, seriously - when you're an unstoppable killer, isn't it kind of cheap to make a name for yourself by taking on teenage girls and an old man? What would happen if a punk like Mike Myers had to go up against a real man for a change? How indestructible would he be against a world karate champion, for instance? Well, the producers of Silent Rage (1982) clearly had that same thought and delivered a film that was the closest horror fans ever got to seeing The Night HE Got His Ass Kicked.

In a bid to cash in on the then-thriving slasher craze, and also in a bid to give action icon Chuck Norris a believable challenge, Silent Rage pitted Chuck - as a determined small town Sheriff - against a human killing machine so relentless that if Chuck fails to bring him down, a nuclear air strike may be in order. Of course, nature alone could never create a being powerful enough to go up against Chuck Norris so Silent Rage's killer is the Godless creation of scientists who commit the foolhardy mistake of reviving a homicidal killer hovering on Death's Door.

And thanks to genetic engineering, this man can now withstand almost any form of physical harm. Of course no one knows more about inflicting physical harm than Chuck Norris so this super sociopath still has plenty to worry about.

Brian Libby plays John Kirby, a four-star whack job who goes on a motiveless murder spree as Silent Rage opens. He wakes up in the boarding house where he's been staying and receives a concerned call from his psychiatrist . We see Kirby subsequently struggle to talk while fumbling in vain for his medication, spilling his pills across the floor. We sense that he may be losing it - especially when he tells his doctor "I'm losing it, Doc! I'm looosing it!" He then does 'lose it' and chases his landlady through the house with an axe in what must be considered one of the Best Opening Scenes Ever.

A mailman on his route hears the landlady hysterically screeching for help (a mailman on his route in India could've heard her just as easily) and soon the local law rolls up, led by Chuck as Sheriff Stevens. Back up is available (well, kind of - the newest addition to the force is Stephen Furst, aka Animal House's chubby "Flounder") but Chuck goes in alone and shows Kirby why it doesn't pay to be an axe-murderer in his town. Unfortunately while being taken into custody, Kirby gets loose and the group of law enforcers on the scene have no choice but to gun him down.

Clinging to life, Kirby is taken to the medical facility where his psychiatrist (played by Ron Silver) works and where, it just so happens, groundbreaking genetic research is being done (!). Against Silver's ethical protests, Kirby is revived post-death (by Steven Keats and genre regular William Finley). Once Kirby gets his feet on the ground, his first house call is to his psychiatrist.

The home invasion that follows delivers some choice stalk and slash moments (there's a perfectly timed head-slam to the wall, for instance) and Libby's malevolent performance, spiked by quirky behavioral tics (like the way he'll often enter a room crouched rather than standing), makes Kirby stand out as one of the more formidable movie maniacs of the '80s. He's such a force to be reckoned with that only Chuck's best roundhouse kicks can end Kirby's rampage.

But before he and Kirby have their showdown, Chuck spends most of Silent Rage reviving an old romance between himself and researcher Alison Halman (Toni Kalem), a woman who he hasn't seen in six years but who now works at the same institute where Kirby's body was taken.

When they first meet in the film, Chuck bumps into Kalem in the halls of the institute and she promptly slaps him across the face for running out on her. Two scenes after that, they're in bed together. The next time they meet, it's right back in the sack for a cringe-inducing love montage that includes gratuitous hammock swinging. And in case it's never been said before, Chuck Norris should not swing in any hammocks. Ever.

Silent Rage may not be particularly great but it is a lot of fun - especially for aficionados of '80s cheese - and it delivered bigger and better slasher movie action than any of the Halloween and Friday the 13th rip-offs at that time, which were generally all structured as 'whodunnits' (and were also too low budget to incorporate the kind of stunt work seen in Silent Rage). And as routine as Silent Rage might seem and as much as this film is chasing Halloween's success, Kirby is a precursor as to how invincible Michael and Jason would later come to be depicted in their own series and Silent Rage foreshadowed the action-heavy approach the sub-genre would adopt as the '80s went on (think of the scene in Jason Lives where Jason crashes a motor home, for instance, or in Halloween 4 where Michael throws victims out of the back of a speeding pick-up).

At the time of Silent Rage, Michael had just been 'killed' in Halloween II and Jason was still the 'hillbilly' version seen in Friday the 13th Part 2 (both films from 1981). Back then, both these icons weren't quite the super-slayers they'd later become - they were merely just hard to kill. But yet in Silent Rage, Kirby survived blunt trauma as only Chuck Norris can deliver it and returned it in kind. As the U.S. posters said, he will "...push Chuck Norris to his limits. And beyond."

As a reminder of an exploitation era when slasher films and Chuck Norris were two of the best reasons to go to the movies, Silent Rage holds up as a satisfying genre crossover.

Click over to my pals at Kindertrauma for their awesome appreciation of Silent Rage, along with some other choice '80s action films that cross the line into full-blown horror.