Nice effects though.

Excellent, smart action film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Psychotic serial killer with traumatic past is accidentally released on an unsuspecting world.He promptly returns near his place of staying and begins to stalk and kill teenage sorority girls."Silent Madness" features Sydney Lassick,Viveca Lindfords and two cast members of "Sleepaway Camp".It's a watchable slasher flick with heavily censored and thus bloodless death scenes.The action is quite slow and there are some drawn out and uninteresting scenes.The gore is also absent;only one death on an exercise machine is pretty shocking and creative.Still if you are into slasher sub-genre you can give this one a look.Recommended for fans of "Doom Asylum" or "Final Exam".6 mental asylums out of 10.

A criminally insane patient is accidentally released from a psychiatric hospital due to a computer error. Psychiatrist Dr. Joan Gilmore (Belinda Montgomery) suspects what has happened and attempts to alert her superiors, but is obstructed by other members of staff who are keen to cover up their mistake. Following a trail of clues, Joan heads to the sorority house where, twenty years earlier, the lunatic slaughtered several girls. Guess who is there to meet her..."You sluts, you whores", screams batty house mother Mrs, Collins (Viveca Lindfors, Aunt Bedelia in Creepshow) at a group of fun-loving sorority sisters who innocently dare to reveal a little bare flesh; this hysterical outburst is easily the best thing about obscure, mid-eighties slasher Silent Madness, the rest of the film being over-talky, virtually bloodless, and lacking in style.Originally shot in 3D, the film initially looks as though it might at least be a bit of laugh thanks to some gratuitous 'in your face' moments designed to exploit its gimmick to the max, but this novelty soon wears off. Sydney Lassick, of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' fame, puts in a reasonably quirky performance as a disbelieving small town sheriff, which helps alleviate the boredom a tad, there's one imaginative kill involving a girl suspended upside down by her ankles, a length of cord and a dumb-bell, and a bonus point is awarded for getting the obligatory topless babe scene in pretty quickly, but even then, my rating is still only a paltry 3/10.

The one line reviews do this film an injustice. Saying something like "A psychopathic killer escapes from an asylum and goes on a killing rampage at a sorority house that echoes a day of slaughter that occurred 20 years earlier" does sum up the plot quite well but this film is NOT the Halloween/Friday 13th/etc copycat that you might think it is.The plot starts of rather outside of normal slasher territory by introducing our heroine, Joan Gilmore who is actually a doctor at an asylum. Lots of the initial running time is devoted to the internal goings on at the institution, and the corruption uncovered makes quite a fascinating subplot that I could have watched develop as a story in it's own right. But the reason for it all is really to set up the fact that a mentally unstable patient is released by mistake, and while the senior staff try and cover up the fact, the honest Dr Gilmore realises that she's going to have to go it alone to track him down and get him back. What follows is an intriguing (well, for a slasher movie!) turn of events as Dr Gilmore traces the original sorority house where the patient committed the murders that got him committed, and poses as a previous "sister" to gain access to the house and try and trap the killer. Aided by a local news reporter, she soon finds out that she was right, and the killer has returned, but he's not about to give up and come quietly without a few corpses piling up! I'll mention why I think this film is worthy of some note. First off, the main heroine, as played by Belinda Montgomery is not a young virginal beauty but a working doctor, and while attractive enough, she's certainly no average teen heroine, rather a resourceful intelligent woman. Secondly, the film sets up the killings in a very clever way, with a few girls being in the house falling victim to the killer in surprisingly brutal ways, as well as a seemingly random couple who get attacked in a camper van near the start actually turning out to be relevant to the plot later on. The film also throws in a couple of brutish hospital attendants who are dispatched by the other doctors (when they realise that the cover-up is not working) to catch the killer. These two thugs also have sexual designs on Dr Gilmore and decide she's just as much a target as the killer when they make their way to the sorority house armed with tranquillisers and cattle prods(!). At this point the film develops a unique three-way dynamic in which Dr Gilmore, the two thugs and the killer all have to square up to each other, and it's hard to know whether to root for the attendants or the killer, as they are a very repugnant pair and played with great sleazy excess by the two actors. The final scenes work very well as these three parties try out-manoeuvre each other to gruesome effect, while Dr Gilmore tries to avoid falling into the clutches of either. Dr Gilmore gets to scrabble and dodge through many hair-raising predicaments, including the menace of being tied under a power drill at one point, and the climax is pretty well done.The film is fairly low budget, but well filmed. The murders are all filmed rather cruelly, as the killer seems to purposely choose a very unpleasant way for each victim to die. The film was originally shot in widescreen, but sadly the version I have seen (the old rental VHS) ruins things with terrible pan and scan. Plus, it's also made in 3-D! Well you don't get to see it in 3-D here, but lots of objects get poked and wiggled into the camera and it must have looked great in the cinema, as the use of the 3-D medium is wisely limited to moments that actually contribute something to the mayhem, rather than showing us people using yo-yos or blowing bubbles.I recommend this movie - although I have read that the DVD releases are CUT so be warned - there's a scene in which an industrial drill gets up close and personal with the back of someones head which is quite graphic, and while other murders are less intense, there are several shots of gory wounds and sharp impalements. So it would be a shame if any of this has been removed. For my part, I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and if I could be sure the DVD releases were uncut I would buy one just to see it in wide-screen...shame about the 3-D, but you can't have everything!

A mental hospital is releasing some patients due to lack of conditions, by mistake they release Howard Johns, an extremely violent patient, that was incarcerated for 17 years, since he was part of the infamous "sorority slaughter". New to the staff, Dr. Joan Gilmore finds out about the mistake and tries to warn those in charge of the hospital about it but older doctors, responsible for the release try to stop her and cover for their mistake by claiming Johns wasn't released at all, he's been dead for a long time. Gilmore eventually takes a vacation and uses to go to Barrington find out what led to the killings at the sorority house. With the help of local newspaper reporter she manages to stay at the sorority house where the events took place but Johns is already there, back to take care of some loose ends.Entertaining slasher, the 3-D scenes are somewhat original, the killings as well. This low-budget flick will surely make the horror fans consider their time well spent.