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

La venganza de la llorona (1974)

... aka: Revenge of the Crying Woman, The

... aka: Santo and Mantequila Napoles vs. Vengeance of Llorona

... aka: Santo in the Vengeance of the Crying Woman

... aka: Santo y Mantequilla en la Venganza de la Llorona

... aka: Santo y Mantequilla Napoles en la Venganza de la Llorona (Santo & Mantequilla Napoles in the Vengeance of La Llorona)

... aka: Vengeance of La Lorona, The

Directed by:

Miguel M. Delgado

After showing off all his patented moves, like the flying leg lock, the arm-and-neck lock, the Irish whip, the arm whip take down, the hammer hold, the suicide drop and even the back-breaking Mexican surfboard, in a televised wrestling bout against Dragon, Santo is called into the office of Professor Esteban Lira (Alonso Castaño), who wants to hire him to raid an ancient tomb, find a mummy and remove a medallion from it. The medallion contains a map leading to the whereabouts of a valuable treasure of 100,000 gold doubloons (worth 80 million pesos in 1974), which had once belonged to the King of Spain. However, Santo is outraged at such a proposal since desecrating graves and robbing the dead go against his upstanding moral values. Once the professor adds that all of the money will be donated to the Mexican Children's Welfare Institute to build hospitals and save the lives of thousands of children, Santo (always a softie when it comes to kids) has a change of heart. The professor further eases his conscience by adding that it's only desecration if the grave is recent and since this one is 300 years old it counts more as an "archaeological investigation." To-may-to. To-mah-to.

As for the grave in question, it belongs to one Eugenia Esparza (Kikis Herrera Calles), who committed suicide by poison in 1678. According to the legend, Eugenia had lived with her lover - Juan de Gonzaga - for ten years and had three children with him. However, Juan had strung her along all that time and never committed to actually marrying her. After a decade of false promises, he then decided to abandon her and run off and marry a wealthy Spanish aristocrat instead, with hopes of taking their children with him.

The spurned and bitter Eugenia then sought the assistance of a Satanic envoy (Marcia Montes) to get revenge. That involved poisoning their children, killing herself, stealing money belonging to the King and framing her former lover for the theft in hopes he'd be publicly shamed and executed. But, just in case Juan was acquitted and survived (which is exactly what happened), part of the Satanic blood pact enables her to rise from her grave to torment the family. Ever since then, a mournful female ghost nicknamed La Llorona ("The Crying Woman") has sporadically haunted the area.

As centuries have passed, every first born male child of the Gonzaga bloodline has been mysteriously killed. That's of particular interest to Professor Lira because he IS part of the bloodline and has already lost a child to this curse. He hopes that by finding the treasure and using it to save the lives of other children, the Satanic pact of La Llorona will be broken and her soul can finally rest in peace. While Santo is skeptical of the tale Lira is spinning (though I'm not sure why since he's already dealt with vampires, ghosts, werewolves, aliens and all kinds of other supernatural and otherworldly creatures up to this point!), he agrees to find the medallion anyway just for the fact children will be helped either way.

Santo goes to the gym and recruits his buddy Mantequilla (José Ángel Nápoles), who has an interest in the occult and supernatural, to accompany him and Professor Lira to the cave tomb housing the remains of Eugenia. The three are trailed there by two different vehicles. The first contains Lira's grown, bell-bottom'd nieces Lilia (Ana Lilia Tovar) and Sonia (Sonia Cavazos), who are starstruck when it comes to Santo (one even makes a sexual pass at him right in front of her grandfather!). The second vehicle has a bunch of thugs led by the scar-faced One-Eye (Carlos Suárez) and working for crime king Severo Segovia (René Cardona), who have been tipped off about the treasure by Professor Luis Alvarez; one of Lira's backstabbing colleagues. The medallion is taken, La Llorona is resurrected and she decides to go after ALL of her descendants. That puts Lira, his nieces and his young grandchildren, Carlitos (Jorgito Rodríguez) and Martita (Alejandra Murga), as well as some heretofore unseen randos (the first victim is some woman just sleeping in bed) in danger.

Well, we definitely got some great 70s fashions going on here with Santo's collection of over-sized jackets and dad sweaters and Mantequilla's maroon turtleneck ensemble and purple and orange karategi. Aside from that, this is a very typical Santo action cheapie, which means that it's basically the filmic equivalent of watching wheels spin for 90 minutes. There's set-up after endless set-up of our heroes and the villains clashing, the bad guys getting beaten unconscious, our heroes walking away to go do something else and then, 5 to 10 minutes later, the same set of characters running into each other again to repeat the same exact scene.

What's especially annoying here is that for a film involving such an interesting character as Llorona, whom they spend time actually setting up a backstory and mythology for (and name the bloody film after!), for them to then stick her on the back burner and concentrate instead on the far less-interesting Severo and his goon squad, is just unacceptable. Even worse, Severo simply disappears from the film never to be seen again after barking out a few final orders. There's no satisfying comeuppance for this character, nor his thugs, who get beaten unconscious for the hundredth time but we can assume will simply just get back up and go about their business again.

This also suffers from obvious budget cuts, which are most glaring when it comes to the (boring) staged fight scenes. Back in the day, Santo wrestling matches were filmed before an actual audience. A HUGE one. Sure, they were poorly filmed with static camerawork, but at least they felt like some kind of spectacle and the energy of the crowd helped these along. But, even by this late stage in the series, the filming of these scenes hadn't improved any (they're still unimaginatively shot from outside the ring) but with the added insult of being set in front of a blank wall, with only the wrestlers and ref visible and looped-in sounds of cheering hilariously failing to convince there's a live crowd watching.

With nothing new to really offer audiences, this entry tried to capitalized on some stunt casting in order to lure people in. That's most obvious in the presence of Nápoles (who passed away in 2019); an internationally famous Cuban-born Mexican boxing champion who won numerous world welterweight titles in the 60s and 70s and was an inductee into both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and World Boxing Hall of Fame. This is his only known acting role and it's easy to see why given his hilariously terrible, glassy-eyed 'deer in headlights' performance, plus the fact he looks really bored most of the time. Nápoles, who also gets some boxing footage shoehorned in to further pad out the running time, is billed under his professional nickname Mantequilla, which means "Butter", as in smooth as.

The most interesting casting decision was actually Kikis Herrera Calles as the titular character. Born into one of the wealthiest families in Mexico and granddaughter of former Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles, Kikis bucked her socialite upbringing by refusing to be a housewife and proper society lady. According to an article on Univision with input from one of her close friends, she drank, smoked, refused a chauffeur, studied theater and hung out in smoky nightclubs at night, where she'd play pool and poker with the men and perform songs.

In a world where her privileged peers were already settled into domestic life, Kikis had several failed relationships and divorces (cause for scandal back then for someone of her status), which included a short-lived and heavily-publicized romance with famous singer José José, who was 20 years her junior and at the very start of a career that would see tens of millions in album sales and 6 Grammy nominations. It also put her front-and-center in the tabloids and turned much of the public, her friends and family against her. Still, she'd continue to land some acting work, especially on (what else?) soap operas. Kikis appeared in this Santo film (and, truth be told, she's wasted here) at the height of her notoriety; just a year before her divorce from José José became official. In 1983, she died after being run over by a freight train late one night. Because her car was found with almost no damage on it yet her body was found mutilated underneath the train, many suspected foul play. Numerous books, movies and TV shows were made about her life in the aftermath of that tragedy.

To my knowledge, this wasn't given any kind of English release until Rise Above Entertainment issued a full frame DVD of the film with English subtitles in 2003. Later, VCI released a widescreen restored print with new English dubbing.

★1/2