Silent Rage (1982)

Silent Rage is a movie that employs a Frankenstein-inspired villain, a sweaty serial killer who is murdered and then becomes the experiment of a group of scientists who give him a serum (there’s always a serum) that allows his body to instantaneously heal itself.  That’s fitting because the plot itself it sort of Frankenstein-inspired, a sweaty Chuck Norris movie that mashes together the supernatural villain plot with one of Chuck’s usual small-town-sheriff-tracks-a-bad-guy roles.

The results are kind of like ice cream and pizza. They’re interesting separately but you don’t necessarily want them on top of each other.  The movie opens with a scene right out of a gruesome horror movie: a gaunt little man, John Kirby, murders two members of his family with an axe and the police respond led by Dan Stevens (Chuck) who promptly arrest him. He overpowers the cops and they are forced to shoot him dead.

Kirby is taken to an institute where the experiment is administrated in secret.  He overpowers the guys at the institute and escapes, now with the serum in his veins.  Naturally, his first target is Dan Stevens and the rest of the movie is Dan’s repeated attempts to kill Kirby despite his ability to heal himself.

This plot actually sounds better than it is plays.  The fusion of Chuck with the invulnerable killer is, again, a mixture that doesn’t really work.  Chuck doesn’t play these scenes very well, and the film’s level of violence is really high for one of his movies.  I don’t recall one of his films ever being this bloody or purely violent.

Plus, I’m a little put off by the killer.  Why did the scientists choose a killer to reanimate?  Why not a kid who just suffered a near-fatal car accident?  Or someone who had an overdose?  It just seems like a waste, and a complete risk, to use this obviously brilliant scientific breakthrough on a sweaty, filthy killer who just jacked his family with an axe.  I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into this.  The movie wants me to focus on the action scenes and not ask questions.  Maybe I’m overthinking it.