Silent Rage Blu-Ray Review (Retro VHS Look Series)
By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 13, 2019 at 11:30 PM in Home Video

Silent Rage arrives on Blu-ray as part of Mill Creek Entertainment's Retro VHS Look Series, part of a growing trend of physical media releases with packaging designed to look like the VHS videocassettes of the 1980s and 1990s. I have reviewed several other titles in the series here on The Corner Penthouse.

Silent Rage (1982) tells the tale of the tough, street-fighting Dan Stevens (Chuck Norris), the sheriff of a small Texas town terrorized by psychotic killer John Kirby (Brian Libby). Sheriff Stevens is faced with the dilemma of stopping the invincible murderer, made virtually indestructible through genetic engineering. A young group of researchers (Ron Silver, Steven Keats, William Finley) are responsible for developing the serum, and the head of the research institute is determined to continue the genetic experiments regardless of the consequences.

Okay, confession time. I have seen very little of Chuck Norris' work. I grew up with the animated Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (1986) TV series, and later saw his hit live action TV series Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001), but that was about it. The only one of his movies I ever saw was the kid-flick Sidekicks (1992) with Jonathan Brandis. I never even heard of Silent Rage until Mill Creek released it as part of this series. I have no idea if it's representative of a "Chuck Norris film" or not, but I assume that most of his films are not as weird as this one.

The first hour of the movie switches back and forth between Dan rekindling an old romance with Alison Halman (Toni Kalem), a researcher at the institute where her brother and a few others are simultaneously playing Dr. Frankenstein by trying to bring the dead psycho John Kirby back to life while also making him indestructible. The romance portion really does nothing to help the film, except give us a look at Ms. Kalem's lovely breasts, and a montage set to "It's The Time For Love" by Katey Sagal. Yes, the actress who would later star in Married With Children and Futurama, started off her career as a singer. (She also sings the theme song to the Dan Aykroyd/Gene Hackman film Loose Cannons.) There's also a very minor subplot involving a biker gang which results in a bar fight featuring Dan single-handedly defeating the entire gang. Of course, that's easy to do when each gang member waits for their turn to take him on. Had they all ganged up on him, I highly doubt that Dan would have stood a chance. The bar scene does give us a few more instances of nude breasts, which along with a few uses of strong language, is why this movie is rated R.

Having never witnessed a fight scene in a Chuck Norris film before, I don't know if it's out of the ordinary for the fights in Silent Rage to be so, well.. silent. Unlike the movies today, there is no music score over the fight scenes to accentuate the action, nor are there any fast cuts and shaky camera action. Clearly, Kevin Dunn did not direct this film. (That's a joke for any fellow smart WWE fans reading this.) The only noises you hear during the fights are the sound effects of punches, kicks, and breaking glass. That makes the fight scenes seem a bit other-worldly to me. It's like when you go to see a live wrestling show and it seems so different without hearing the commentators while watching the action. As much as it annoys you, you realize that you miss it when it's not there.

Also appearing in the film is Stephen Furst as comic relief Deputy Charlie. Talks about a waste of a good actor. All Furst is given to do, in his few brief appearances, is constantly eat large portions of food - because he's overweight - and be the most inept police officer since Inspector Gadget. Every time he appears on screen and does something downright stupid, you have to wonder why Dan keeps him on the force. I surmise he must have some serious dirt on the sheriff to let him keep a job he's clearly not suitable for.

Once you get past the first hour, killer Kirby escapes the institute and goes on his killing spree. That's where the film really picks up and becomes "Chuck Norris vs. Michael Myers" for the remaining 40 minutes of its runtime. I don't really have anything bad to say about that part of the film. Sure, it's a little cheesy at times, but had they kept that up for the first hour, it would have been a better film overall.

(October 2008, credit: Google Maps)
As a fun little bonus, I managed to identify the location of the house at the beginning of the movie. You'll find it at 5319 Bryan Street in Dallas, Texas. The image above is from October 2008, as everything later that Google photographed changed too much from when the movie was filmed in 1981/1982.

At a runtime of 1:40:25, Silent Rage is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. On the audio side, there is only an English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track. There are English subtitles, which is a pleasant surprise as all of the other releases in this series have none. As is the case with most Mill Creek Entertainment releases, there are no special features - just like the original videocassette!

The real "bonus feature" here is the vintage-looking VHS-inspired slipsleeve, with faux wear and tear, and fake "rental stickers" on it, while giving the appearance of a videocassette being pulled out from the right side (though the original VHS may have been in a bottom-loading box), complete with tape label side on the right spine. Here's a complete look at this special slipsleeve. Click on it to get a better look.
The front artwork is partly based on the original U.K. VHS box art (seen immediately below) and the original U.S. VHS box art (seen below that). The back of the slipsleeve seems to be a new creation done in vintage style, though the two side-by-side photos and the block of text beneath them is exactly the same as the back of the U.S. VHS release. (Credit for the original VHS artwork goes to The Legendary VHS and several eBay auctions.)


The case artwork underneath is of a modern style, which means that the VHS-style slipsleeve may only be available for a limited time. In the photo below, the slipsleeve cover is on the left and the case artwork underneath is on the right.

If you're not already aware of Mill Creek Entertainment, they are a budget company, which results in their products having a lower cost than the big studios. Right now, Silent Rage is listed on Amazon for a mere $7.50.

As of the time of this writing, the Retro VHS Look Series includes the following Blu-ray releases.
• Happy Birthday To Me (1981) (January 15, 2019)
• Hardbodies (1984) (January 15, 2019)
• Krull (1983) (January 15, 2019)
• Last Action Hero (1993) (January 15, 2019)
• Silent Rage (1982) (January 15, 2019)
• Who's Harry Crumb? (1989) (January 15, 2019)
• The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) (February 19, 2019)
• Neighbors (1981) (February 19, 2019)
• Sheena (1984) (February 19, 2019)
• Songwriter (1984) (February 19, 2019)
• Hardbodies (1984) (January 15, 2019)
• Krull (1983) (January 15, 2019)
• Last Action Hero (1993) (January 15, 2019)
• Silent Rage (1982) (January 15, 2019)
• Who's Harry Crumb? (1989) (January 15, 2019)
• The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) (February 19, 2019)
• Neighbors (1981) (February 19, 2019)
• Sheena (1984) (February 19, 2019)
• Songwriter (1984) (February 19, 2019)
Images used come from the Internet Movie Database gallery of the film. The Blu-ray has been provided by Mill Creek Entertainment for review on this site.
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