Silent Rage: A Master’s Class in How NOT to Make a Film

On the surface, making a hybrid of the first two Halloween movies, Frankenstein and Walker: Texas Ranger sounds like a brilliant idea. How can anyone of discerning taste NOT be intrigued by this tagline: “Science created him. Only Chuck Norris can stop him.” Chuck Norris in a slasher movie sounds great, right? Wrong.

There are two separate films at work in Silent Rage, and neither of them is particularly good. The first revolves around a sweaty, axe-wielding psycho who, in the opening scenes, does the viewing audience a favor by chopping up a shrill woman who runs a boardinghouse. This “suspense” sequence, like most in the movie, is incredibly tedious and without any vestige of the emotional impact that is required for the audience to actually be in suspense. After being taken down by officer Norris, who basically gets his ass kicked in the process, the psycho is shipped off to a hospital where doctors, lead by real-life rightwing zealot Ron Silver, are strangely desperate to save his life. After he flat-lines, they inject him with a Reanimator-esque concoction that gives him superhuman strength and allows his wounds to heal almost immediately.

Following this, we suffer through heaps of trite dialogue and a completely different plot (apparently, the director thought that boredom would heighten the suspense). Chuck Norris is your average small-town cop, charged with keeping the rednecks down at the local drinking hole in line in a bad fight scene thrown like a bone to fans to make up for the fact that absolutely nothing seems to happen in this movie. I think it’s fair to say that Silent Rage makes cinematic history by having the most stereotypical, bumbling deputy sidekick of all-time, who provides out-of-place comic relief. I mean, this guy makes Barney Fife look like Dirty Harry. Not only is this guy bumbling, but he makes you uncomfortable when his first site of naked breasts makes him fall in love.

45 minutes of going to the bathroom, getting a drink, making food and watching the clock later, we FINALLY get back to the psycho killer, who begins to cut a path of destruction through the town and hospital. There are several slashings, a needle in the neck and lots of killer’s POV shots and minimalist synth music stolen straight from the Halloween movies. After another drawn-out, devoid-of-suspense chase sequence, Chuck finally manages to take him down. Fin.

Is this movie worth your $2?:
With the above-mentioned tagline, it’s obvious why we chose this. We reserved this section to talk about the movie’s one saving grace – a love story between Norris and a townie, who also happens to work at the hospital. This subplot allows for a jaw-dropping romantic montage, culminating in one of the most disgusting sex scenes that we as battle-scarred bad movie vets have yet seen. Chuck romances said woman by inviting her to his pad, taking off his shirt, draping a towel over his hairy chest and then throwing some porno music on the stereo (literally). This, alone, is worth your rental fee.