……Not even a killer with superhuman strength is a match for Chuck Norris in this slasher movie.
……..Chuck Norris Once Fought A Michael Myers Clone In A Bizarre Martial Arts
The Big Picture
Silent Rage combines horror and martial arts, starring Chuck Norris as a superhuman killer’s worst nightmare.
Director Michael Miller unintentionally created a slasher film tribute to Frankenstein with a silent, deadly villain. While not a masterpiece, Silent Rage is a fun, entertaining mess with absurd plot twists and Chuck Norris’s iconic action scenes.
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In the 1970s and 80s, two genres of movies really took off: the slasher and the martial arts film. After the popularity of John Carptenter’s Halloween in 1978, the slasher craze dominated the next decade, whether it was Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th franchise or countless copycats. Movies centered around martial arts did big business as well, thanks to the early ’70s Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, and Enter the Dragon. When Lee sadly passed away in 1973 at just 32, he passed the torch to other martial arts experts, including one Chuck Norris.
Norris had a string of hits in the latter part of the decade and into the ’80s with independent successes A Force of One and The Octagon. In 1982 came Silent Rage, a film that combined the two genres, mixing horror with flying fists and kicks. Imagine a so-bad-it’s-good one-hundred minutes starring Chuck Norris as an ass-kicking Walker, Texas Ranger-type charactergoing up against a mute Michael Myers-like killer with super strength. It’s as stupid and glorious as you can imagine.
Silent Rage 1982
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.
Release Date
- April 2, 1982
Director - Michael Miller
Cast - Chuck Norris , Ron Silver , Steven Keats , Toni Kalem , William Finley , Brian Libby , stephen furst , Stephanie Dunnam
Runtime - 103 Minutes
Main Genre - Action
Writers - Joseph Fraley , Edward Di Lorenzo
‘Silent Rage’ Was Chuck Norris’ First Studio Film
One of Chuck Norris’ first film roles was as one of the primary villains going up against Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon. He wasn’t the best actor in the world, but Norris didn’t just have the fighting ability (he has three black belts). He also had a charismatic presence, whether he was clean-shaven or later rocking that famous mustache or beard. He quickly became an action icon with movies like Breaker! Breaker! and Good Guys Wear Black, but those were small, independent fare. Norris needed a big breakout, studio-led film to really set his career on fire. He found it with Columbia Pictures’ Silent Rage.
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In a 2016 interview with Coming Soon, Silent Rage director Michael Miller spoke about how the screenplay was written as a karate cop film with Norris in mind. The martial arts legend put his all into the fight scenes, refusing to pull his punches and kicks. The fights had to look real, and sometimes that caused him to accidentally hit an actor. Miller said, “He was most comfortable fighting,” and that’s always been the case. You don’t watch a Chuck Norris movie or TV show to witness an expert actor draw you in with a tear-jerking monologue, but rather to see a bad guy get his butt kicked by a dude with cool facial hair. Miller found that out when he told Norris to improvise a love scene with actress Toni Kalem, to which Norris said, “You want me to what?” In martial arts, you’re trained to follow a certain routine, but now he was being told to just go with it and make stuff up on the spot.
‘Silent Rage’s Director Was Trying To Make a Frankenstein Film, Not a Slasher
Silent Rage’s plot revolves around John Kirby (Brian Libby), a man who goes on a murderous rampage in the opening act, only to be captured by Sheriff Daniel Stevens (Norris). After being shot several times, a gravely wounded Kirby is taken to an institute where doctors inject him with a new, special formula that will repair and strengthen his cells. The formula works a little too well, leading to John Kirby escaping and going on another rampage, this time without saying a word. It’s a silent rampage! Get it?!
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Director Michael Miller told Coming Soon that his silent, hulk of a villain was supposed to be a tribute to a famous Universal monster. He said, “In my mind, it was a Frankenstein movie. It was like Frankenstein meets Chuck.” Instead of being Frankenstein, however, Miller created a Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees wannabe, even if he didn’t mean to. Strangely enough, Miller said that not only was he not a fan of Halloween or Friday the 13th, but he hadn’t even seen them. Miller added, “You can see that this guy is not a slasher. He kills people the way Frankenstein’s creature kills people. He throws them,” before the interviewer reminded him that Kirby takes out his family with an axe in the first scene, just like a typical slasher killer would do.
‘Silent Rage’ Is an Entertaining Accidental ‘Halloween’ Clone
Silent Rage (1982)
Maybe Miller wasn’t familiar with slashers and wasn’t trying to make one, but that’s what he did. Every slasher needs an inciting incident, and Silent Rage has it. The first time we meet John Kirby he does speak, before losing his mind and slaughtering his wife and kids. The way Kirby stands rigid and walks slowly is just like how Michael Myers walks. Shots of him calmly walking across the yard, axe in hand, filmed from a window inside look like cinematography right out of Halloween. After Kirby escapes from the hospital, he’s suddenly in a one-piece mechanic-like outfit and goes after his doctor. He then goes on a massacre at a hospital, as if he has just landed in Halloween II, and targets one victim. At one point, the score even goes into full synthesizer mode in a move that would make John Carpenter proud. All of this happens with a superhuman killer who doesn’t speak and can’t be killed. Sound familiar? All that’s missing is a William Shatner or hockey mask.
Now, Silent Rage is not some forgotten slasher masterpiece; far from it. It’s a mess of a movie, but a fun one. When all the cops stand back and let Chuck Norris enter the house where a killer waits all by himself, it’s absurd but entertaining. Chuck Norris has the strength of a hundred cops and can take down the most superhuman of killers on his own. Still, you can’t help but shake your head when Norris chases the killer into the woods and all the other cops just watch, not even considering helping, because it’s not in the script for them to matter. Only one other cop matters, Deputy Charlie (Stephen Furst), but he’s a stereotypical early ’80s cop trope, the bumbling idiot who can’t do anything right. Silent Rage also has a second act problem, where, for the longest time, the plot is completely forgotten, as Chuck Norris fights some local hoodlums.
Still, if you like bad movies, Silent Rage will have you laughing. The slasher references are spot on, the acting is ridiculous, the plot is crazy, and if that’s not enough, you even get a shirtless Chuck Norris in a love scene so awkward that even Tommy Wiseau would cringe. But who cares, it’s Walker, Texas Ranger vs. Michael Myers, the greatest icon mash-up you never knew you needed.
