Silent Rage (1982)

Director: Michael Miller

Starring: Chuck Norris, Ron Silver, Steven Keats

A sheriff tries to stop the killing spree of a silent maniacal murderer who, as the result of secret genetic experimentation by an unethical scientist, has the ability to self-heal.

John Kirby has finally lost it. In a desperate moment when everything becomes too much for him, he hacks his wife to death with an axe. Sheriff Dan Stevens (Chuck Norris) and several officers arrive on the scene. When Kirby is shot several times, he doesn’t die, and simply gets up again.

It turns out Kirby has been genetically engineered. Taken to an institute, Kirby’s psychiatrist, Dr Tom Halman (Ron Silver) and scientists bring a near dead Kirby ‘back to life’ with an untested serum. Now, Kirby has the ability to self-heal, but there are major side effects, and he also seemingly no longer has a conscience.

It is up to Sheriff Dan to save the day. With all the bad guys in the film, Chuck Norris gets a good chance to show off his martial arts skills. ‘Silent Rage’ therefore is an action adventure fantasy horror thriller. Phew, that’s a mouthful. Dan’s deputy is the insecure Charlie (Stephen Furst), who also serves as the comic relief – and he was actually a very likable character.

Tom’s sister is Alison, with whom Dan gets romantically involved. This romance significantly slowed down the film’s pacing and I found this love story boring and distracting. On the positive side, the romance allowed them to constantly show Norris without his shirt, showing off his great body – and that was awesome.

‘Silent Rage’ is not the kind of film I expected Norris to do, but I rather enjoyed him in this action horror. The film off course also features the clichéd hand to hand combat climax between protagonist and antagonist, but it was entertaining. It also ends on a chilling note like most horrors do. ‘Silent Rage’ does have its moments, but as a whole I don’t think I’m going to remember this.

On a budget of $4.5 million ‘Silent Rage’ eventually grossed $29.5 million.

Would I watch it again? No.