Silent Madness (1984)

... aka: Beautiful Screamers

... aka: Hiljainen tappaja (Silent Killer)

... aka: Locura sangrienta (Blood Madness)

... aka: Nightkillers, The

... aka: Omega Factor, The

Directed by:

Simon Nuchtern

I only vaguely remember seeing Silent Madness many years ago and the only thing that really stood out to me at the time was just how ludicrous I thought the entire premise was. I mean, an obviously still-unhinged psycho / serial killer with a long history of violence gets accidentally released from a mental institution and goes on to kill, kill and kill some more? That kind of stuff only happens in the movies, right? Well, no. First of all, I suppose I wasn't really paying close attention because that's not exactly what happens here. Second, I wasn't putting this in context and looking at what was going on at the time this was made. Now that I have, I can at least now see why it was made...

As Governor of California, Ronald Reagan had already slashed the state budget for mental health facilities, which resulted in many closures, nearly three thousand health care jobs cut and tens of thousands of mentally ill people forced into either nursing homes, privately owned group homes or out onto the streets. This resulted in an increase in the California homeless population but also an increase in homicides. Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin, Edward Allaway and Charles Soper were just four examples of former patients who weren't adequately treated and released prematurely and then went on to mass murder / serial killing sprees. This problem then went national in the 80s when Reagan became president. One of the first things he did was throw out the Mental Health Systems Act passed by the previous administration. By the end of the decade, hundreds of thousands of former mental patients were unaccounted for and thought to be among the homeless. Many of them were eventually ending up in prison for committing various crimes. Others were committing suicide or freezing to death on the streets. And then there was an uptick in homicides being committed by former patients (many of them diagnosed schizophrenics) who had no business being out roaming the streets.

Silent Madness seems to be trying to comment on all of the above but that doesn't necessarily mean this is an intelligent or thought-provoking movie. It's not. In fact, it can be filed away in a peculiar category we'll call the "socially conscious slasher," where a film alludes to, or at least pays lip service to, topical social issues of the time to give it a veneer of respectability, yet doesn't delve into that subject matter in any meaningful, affecting way. It can then take a seat right next to VISITING HOURS (1982), which found its writer (Brian Taggert) and star (Lee Grant) trying to make a feminist statement within a slash-and-hack format but not pulling it off due to a high implausibility factor. Madness is also notable as one of a handful of 3D horror releases from a brief early 80s 3D revival. Unfortunately, this one came out a year too late to really capitalize on a craze that audiences had grown tired of after just a few years.

Psychiatrist Dr. Joan Gilmore (Belinda Montgomery) is a new employee at Cresthaven, a scummy Manhattan psychiatric hospital packed to the rafters with loons and staffed with slovenly orderlies who flick their cigarette butts on the floor and bitter, cynical doctors who appear to have stopped caring about their work a long time ago. The compassionate yet thoroughly professional Joan has a particular problem with budget-obsessed Dr. Michael Kruger's (Roderick Cook) release program, which has been recently turning patients loose, even ones with no ability to function on the outside world, at an alarming rate. She tries to voice her concerns to the flaky Dr. Roger Vandice (Ed Van Nuys), but he doesn't even know the patient's names let alone their status, and then goes to administrator Dr. Margaret Anderson (Stanja Lowe), who rolls her eyes at her as she informs her that they're "desperately overcrowded and understaffed" and that they barely have enough money to take care of the patients they do have.

Dr. Kruger notices that one particular patient, John Howard, is still there even though Dr. Vandice had already signed his release papers. Seeing how easily the two doctors just brush that aside, a suspicious Joan sneaks into Kruger's office, gets on his computer and discovers they've actually released the wrong person. Instead of the docile John Howard, they've let mute, criminally insane maximum security patient / serial killer Howard Johns (stuntman Solly Marx) loose. Oops! By the time Joan discovers the error, Howard has already picked up where he left off, started with camping couple Paul (Paul DeAngelo - SLEEPAWAY CAMP) and Susan (April Daisy White). This scene is a good example of how effects filmed specifically for 3-D release don't always translate over to a regular viewing, particularly a shot of the psycho throwing a silly-looking cartoon hatchet right at the camera. After killing these two, Howard makes his way back to the Barrington College for Women (he was arrested for a previous set of slayings called the "Barrington Sorority Murders") and starts slaughtering coeds again.

Back at the hospital, Joan discovers that Dr. Kruger has been conducting unorthodox, inhumane and illegal experiments on patients in an off-limits, locked wing of the hospital. Most of the patients he's been experimenting on have been deemed the worst of the worst and one of them was Howard Johns, whom Joan now suspects has been intentionally released by Kruger and his toadies. (The story of it being an accident is merely a smokescreen.) When Joan brings this up to the administrator, Kruger brings in a new set of forged documents stating that Howard has actually died, not been discharged.

Joan's given the weekend off and decides to do some freelance investigation work. She goes to the useless, lazy, drunk Sheriff Liggett (Sydney Lassick) for information but he just turns around and informs the hospital what Joan is up to. Next, Joan visits the local newspaper office where journalist Mark McGowan (David Greenan) hatches a plan. Suspecting Howard will return to the scene of the previous crimes at the Delta Omega sorority house, he suggests Joan pose as an alumnus passing through town needing a place to say. She could nab the patient and he could nab a great story.

Joan goes to the sorority and meets a few stragglers left behind (the college is on "mid-semester break"); good girl Jane (Katherine Kamhi, another Sleepaway Camp vet), fitness freak Pam (Tori Hartman) and blood-and-guts-loving Cheryl aka My Kinda Gal (Katie Bull), as well as overly-protective house mother Mrs. Collins (Viveca Lindfors); a lonely widow who's lost her only son, seems a bit unhinged herself and is first seen screaming at one of the girls and calling her a "whore" for exposing her bra. Unbeknownst to Joan and the sorority girls, the psycho is already in the house and has been hiding out in the (hilariously labyrinthine) basement, where he's already killed Barbara (Elizabeth Kaitan) and Lorraine (Paige Price).

As if the level of danger isn't high enough already, the evil Dr. Kruger and rest of the corrupt Cresthaven staff decide to send out a pair of sadistic orderlies; Virgil (Dennis Helfend) and Jesse (Philip Levy), to do some damage control. They're given specific orders to do everything possible to apprehend Howard. As for Joan, the orderlies hope to drug her ("I'm gonna shove this hypo in her tight ass and twist it around!"), rape her, kidnap her and then take her back to the hospital to be used as a guinea pig in Kruger's secret experiments.

While pretty preposterous at times, this is still surprisingly well-acted by most of the cast (experienced actress Montgomery in particular makes for a very good heroine) and extremely busy plot-wise to keep your attention from waning too much. For the exploitation fans, you get two topless scenes, black-and-white trauma flashbacks of the killer murdering four sorority girls with a nail gun after they ply him with alcohol and spank him (!) and a fairly wide variety of deaths, including a sledgehammer to the face, a hatchet to the back, a crowbar impalement, a face roasted with hot steam, a head smashed in a vice, a guy getting drilled in the back of the head during an attempted rape and, most cleverly, a girl hanging upside down on an inversion bar having her neck broken after the psycho ties a rope around her neck, attaches a weight to the other end and then tosses it out a window.

As for the finale, it's a mix of fighting, killing, running, hiding, climbing up and down ladders, going in and out of rooms and the air conditioning ducts, a Roto-Rooter attack (!) and assorted, sometimes hilarious over-the-top chaos. There's a pretty predictable plot twist, some cool lighting touches in a long boiler room chase scene and a couple of unintentionally funny bits, but, hey, at least it's not boring! And I am actually glad I revisited this one after all these years. It's still not great but it IS entertaining and much more fun than I remembered it being.

Made on a budget of 600,000 dollars, Madness was filmed in 1983, played in theaters in 1984 (where very few people got to actually see it in 3-D due to booking problems [supposedly NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was hogging all the space!]) and then hit the home video market in 1985 courtesy of Media. It was then reissued on VHS by Video Treasures a few years later. In 2020, it was given a 4K restored Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome. Their release comes with 3-D glasses and has three viewing options: Digital 3-D, Anaglyph 3-D and Flat 2-D. It also comes with a 45-minute making of documentary Method of the Madness (directed by Michael Gingold), which features interviews with director / producer Nuchtern, writer Bill Milling, make-up artist Carl Morano and actors DeAngelo, Kamhi, Price, Hartman and Shelly Gibson.

★★1/2

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

... aka: Night Frenzy

... aka: Nightie Nightmare

... aka: Nighty Nightmare

... aka: Nocny koszmar

... aka: Sorority House Massacre 2: Nighty Nightmare

Directed by:

Jim Wynorski

Few films have had a more irritating reception than this one! It seems like most viewers fall into one of three camps: Those who think this is flat out terrible, those who find this hilarious in a SBIG kind of way and those who view this as a wholly-self-aware, intentionally witty and surprisingly clever slasher-exploitation flick. A reasonable case could probably be made by those who think this is bad because, well, that's in the personal taste / humor is subjective / "Hey, that's just like your opinion, man!" realm. An even better case could be made for the third group because they actually get it. However, saying this is unintentionally funny is complete bs. This is so obviously poking fun at itself the entire time that it absolutely floors me that anyone could find the humor accidental!

I also disagree with many of the other criticisms this title frequently gets, starting with claims that the cast is bad. While the performances are variable, they are mostly no worse than what you'd find in other 80s / 90s slasher flicks, even the ones Hollywood was cranking out around the same time. I'd even go one step further and say these actors are far more enjoyable! Even the lesser talents are more personable and charming than the assembly line fodder you usually get. If you're anything like me you'd much rather tolerate the occasional awkward line reading than suffer bland indifference from a cast and crew who obviously don't really care, especially if that means everyone is trying their best, enthusiastic about what they're doing and appear to be having a great time. You get that in abundance here.

Other frequent complaints are also mostly bunk; usually centering around the large amount of nudity in the film. To that I say, yeah. So what? Is that a crime? What exactly are you expecting from something called Sorority House Massacre II? Why would you even view a film with scantily-clad girls plastered all over the poster and the tagline "cleavage vs. cleavers" and then bitch about the nudity? There's an even more curious subset of slasher fans who take offense that this isn't anything like the original SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE, nor is it really a legitimate sequel to that film. To that I say: Good! The original was a straightforward, humorless rip-off of HALLOWEEN and was muddled, dreary and pretty damn boring. So why not just pour on the sleaze and humor?

Five college girls - Linda ("Robyn Harris" aka Gail Harris), Jessica (Melissa Moore), Janey (Dana Bentley), Kimberly (Stacia Zhivago) and Suzanne (Michelle Verran) - move into their newly-purchased sorority house a day early with hopes of meeting up with the movers and phone / utilities people the following morning. However, they were apparently able to get their water turned on early, which, as we'll soon see, comes in handy in several later scenes. Unbeknownst to all of the girls but one, they've just moved into a former mass murder site called the Old Hockstatter Place. Five years earlier, a psycho named Clive Hockstatter murdered his entire family there before being put down by the neighbors. The house has remained vacant ever since.

The ladies are promptly visited by the portly, creepy, crater-faced, monotone, unflappable next door neighbor Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos), who tells them all about the home's sordid history. (Clips from THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE are used for the flashbacks, which has confused a lot of people over the years. For the record, this was not conceived as a sequel to either the original SHM or SPM and was simply re-titled to give it a better chance on the cable / video market.) After the murders, Orville was paid by the cops to straighten up the place (i.e. clean up the blood) and has been a caretaker of sorts there ever since. He gives the girls a key to the basement (which he pulls out from the front of his pants!) and leaves, but will be keeping a watchful eye over the place when he isn't watching clips of Hollywood Boulevard on TV, peeping in windows and scarfing down bowls of cubed raw meat! Instead of being a cheap throwaway side role, Ketchum is instead used to satirize the obvious red herring character always found in these kind of films and is amusingly played by Spellos.

After some dinner, some beer, some showering (understand why the water was turned on early now?) and some changing into skimpy thong undies and teddies, the ladies venture into the basement where ole Clive kept all of his murder weapons. There, they find a blood-spattered doll and a OUIJA board. Since there's nothing else to do, they light up the fireplace and contact a spirit guide with the board, asking him to talk to Hockstatter. Instead, the "diviner" shoots into the fireplace and it erupts in flames. Only slightly spooked by that strange occurrence, the girls decide to call it a night. A mysterious prowler armed with a hook then kills them off one-by-one. The occasional scream coming from the home has already been reported to the police, but Lt. Mike Block (Jürgen Baum) and Sgt. Phyllis Shawlee ("Karen Chorak" / Toni Naples) can't make it to the home right away due to a thunderstorm and some flooding. Instead, they make a b-line to the nearest strip club to interview a survivor of the previous massacre, Candy (Bridget Carney), who's kind enough to first treat us to a long strip routine.

When he's at his best, Wynorski has this amazing ability to wallow around in the seedier side of the genre while not making viewers feel like they need to take a shower afterward thanks to his ample use of self-aware humor, pleasant actors and lighter, sillier moments. In this one he throws the blood around pretty liberally and his camera lingers on naked or half-naked women the entire time but just the gratuitousness of it all makes it amusing to watch. Wynorski has also seldom been given credit for being able to slap together a competent film (back when films were actually SHOT on film) is such a small window of time. This one was made in just a week, but it's well-lit and photographed, even managing to capture a good old dark house atmosphere in the process. He's helped immensely in the mood department by a great score from the always-reliable Chuck Cirino.

I liked all five of the main girls well enough. We have 6-foot-tall blonde Moore, who had prior genre experience in (even lower-budgeted) Donald Farmer films, and Bentley (who had been in Fred Olen Ray's Bad Girls From Mars), both acquitting themselves fairly well. Verran is probably the weakest of the five, but considering all she'd done before this was porn (using the name Barbii), she's not too bad. The real wild card is Zhivago, who doesn't appear to have done anything else before OR after this. No one seems to know what happened to her, or why she vanished into thin air right after this, or even what her real name is. It's not too uncommon for an aspiring actress to do one film like this, decide it's not for them and just brush it all behind them and move on with their life, but I'd still love to know what she thinks about the film, especially since she's one of the better actors. So, where'd you go "Stacia Zhivago"? Come say hello!

However, my absolute favorite is the Brit-born fireball Harris, who is basically in the same category as Moore as a former model turned second string Scream Queen who never quite reached the level of success as top dogs like Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens. Regardless, she's very cute, spunky and funny and just throws everything she's got into the proceedings, right down to getting drenched in blood, screaming her head off and doing all of her own stunt work. This film wouldn't be nearly as successful without her in the lead role. Also putting in a brief appearance as a stripper is Shannon Wilsey, who purchased some larger breasts soon after this and became adult film superstar Savannah. This is one of just four non-porn films she appeared in (every role except for The Invisible Maniac was a nude bit part) before taking her own life in 1994.

The budget was 150,000 dollars and this utilizes leftover sets from other Concorde / New Horizons productions like SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III. Julie Corman produced under the name "Shelly Stoker" and it was supposedly filmed behind husband Roger's back when he was out of the country. When Roger finally did view the finished product, he was impressed enough to give Wynorski the green light to make another similar film, which was first called Tower of Terror before being re-titled HARD TO DIE (1990). A fourth film was also made by Wynorski and produced by Corman called Sorority House Massacre III: The Final Exam. Despite being completed in 2002, the film has yet to be released.

A few "mistakes" like visible boom mic shadows, visible panties during showers and (most amusingly) a bottle seen squirting blood during a murder scene would likely be corrected if this was ever given a widescreen release in the proper aspect ratio. The only DVD releases thus far (part of New Horizon's "Massacre Collection" line) have been full screen and none have been properly remastered, though I quite like the sometimes-grainy look of the full screen presentation.

★★★