Silent Madness (1984)

To me, this movie is perfection.

best movie i've ever seen.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I can't believe some of the talent that participated in that crap, the great Vivica Lindfors of all people. She ought to be stoned. There are a couple of impressive moments, but that simply joins all those other crap 80 horror pics. The movie starts off trashily, it had me thinking, "Oh, it's not gonna be like this?", but then got better, for a while, but then it fell back, below average. Gore hounds will share a madness of their own, where gore is scarce and restrained. The most effectively terrifying scene, is the sledge hammer attack van scene. Due to a computer glitch, a most dangerous infamous patient, is wrongly released, where he's a guinea pig in an underground operation by some bad eggs at the psychiatric facility, repellent ones who belong with the other psycho's. One young nurse, Montgomery, one of many talented performers in this, knows something's rotten in Denmark, and does some snooping around where she ends up on a girl's campus, where this nutter, once massacred a sorority, who were pr..k teasing him. She meets a handsome reporter and they form a partnership, to find out if this presumed dead nutter is still alive, which we already know he is. Lindfors's secret, I saw straight off. Montgomery as a goody goody, kind of gets annoying, where our nutter who we view full on, mostly in the end, is SCARY, while also looking like an extra on a zombie movie. This flick, will disappoint, and comes up short on many things, although it's not badly made. It walks paths of predictability too, as it becomes all too familiar with other films of it's ilk. Montgomery overacts big time at the start, Sydney Lassick, simply used as the town cop, while Lindfors, of course walks away with her acting reel. From the makers of the much better House, this bad film, with a good story line, just wasn't utilized properly, in it's last half hour.

I was considering giving this film a rating of 6 stars as I was watching it, up until the second half began. Then it started losing interest, becoming slow and lifeless and without suspense or tension. The one exception was the Sheriff character (he's the highlight of Silent Madness); he was hilarious, his lines were so funny and outrageous. Other than him, it is a boring, not-worth-watching second half. The sorority girls are really annoying, the house mother's acting is uncompelling, the scary scenes not real scary (but yes, the manner of some of the killings was unique and well-done). I presume the title of the movie refers to the killer's not ever uttering a single word the entire time. His looks and facial expressions don't come across as particularly psychotic or creepy. The lead male (newspaper editor) is a nothing-special character and his acting is mediocre. The two thugs are ridiculous and unreal characters. (Although the hospital parts at the beginning are pretty good). The secret "backroom" of the hospital where they are holding some patients in isolation and doing evil stuff to them (what are they doing exactly?) is not sufficiently explained. And the leading lady's motives for going up to the town and sorority house, and police station, to try to look at files to get background information on the killer also are not explained--and don't make sense. She is not there with the thought of hunting him and bringing him back--she does not suspect he is going to be there--he just happens to show up. So what was her point in trying to find out more facts about him and the original murders? What did she hope to do with this information? Finally, the twist ending was nothing to write home about. And the romantic interest aspect between the leading lady and newspaper editor was just tacked on. Never quite seen a movie like this where the first half was watchable and enjoyable and the second half just went to heck-- except for the Sheriff, really. With all this said, maybe you still want to watch it to see if you agree with my assessment of it.

A: One that gets everything wrong. Not really inept, but it plays like someone set out to make a genre film wihtout bothering to scope the market. The killer (played by a stuntman with creepy conviction) is revealed in reel one. He's pursued not by doctors or lawmen but malevolent psycho ward attendants who meet comic deaths. His chief prey ia a thirtysomething gal who's chased thru a sorority basement the size of an airport. Most closely resembles the sick Canadian VISITING HOURS, and includes death by drillpress!

O.K here is yet another mid-80's slasher film. I remember this film briefly playing in the NYC area. It was originally shown in 3-D. Basically a routine, mental patient escaping from the insane asylum to kill sorority girls film. Overall, it's fairly watchable. Decent pacing and photography help. The sub-plot did not. The little twist at the end worked. The killing sequences were average. I missed it in 3-D so I can't say if the 3-D sequences were good. If anyone saw it in 3-D let me know! I recommend Silent Madness to those who are used to this kind of stuff already. If you only appreciate big scale films, don't bother you won't appreciate it. If you appreciate low budget grind house cinema of the 70's-80's you will enjoy!