Silent Rage
Directed by Michael Miller
Released: 1982
Starring: Chuck Norris, Stephen Furst, Brian Libby, and Ron Silver.
Running time: 103 minutes
Reviewed by Eric Grubbs

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When a psychologically-damaged man named John Kirby (played by Brian Libby) kills some of the other tenants in his home, Sheriff Dan Stevens (Chuck Norris) steps in to stop the madness. Despite Stevens’ best peace-keeping kung-fu efforts, a shootout ensues and Kirby is shot dead. Then, a trio of ambitious doctors revives Kirby and experiments on him, turning him into an invincible superhuman. Kirby goes on a killing spree, and just like their first encounter, Dan Stevens is the only man who can stop Kirby.

Aside from the beginning and end barely connecting together, most of Silent Rage contains two completely different stories: Stevens gets back together with his old girlfriend (played by Toni Kalem) while he kicks a lot of ass with a gang of troublemaking bikers in town. Meanwhile, the doctors play Frankenstein with their monster. The action scenes with stunts coordinated by Aaron Norris (Chuck’s brother) are great, as are the scenes with the scientists wondering about the morality of their actions.

Make no mistake, this movie is part Chuck Norris star vehicle and part blatant homage/rip-off of the first two Halloween movies. Released in 1982, the first wave of splatter flicks had cleaned up at the box office, and Silent Rage was obviously a part of the trend at the time. However, given the fact that there are no horny teenagers waiting to get picked off, the movie may have slipped under the radar of slasher and splatter movie fans.

Michael Miller’s directing is quite an asset here. The first shot following the title sequence is a five-minute, continuous Steadicam shot. A number of scenes contain long tracking shots, and there’s a very obvious homage halfway through the film to the opening shot of Halloween. In someone else’s hands, it probably would have felt like a TV movie.