Episode VIII: Silent Rage

Silent Rage (1982)

Rated: R
Director: Michael Miller
Screenplay: Joseph Fraley
Starring: Chuck Norris as Sheriff Dan Stevens
Steven Furst as Deputy Charlie
Ron Silver as Dr. Tom Halman
Toni Kalem as Allison Halem

Tagline: “Science created him, Now Chuck Norris must destroy him.”

By: Rupert Pupkin (as told to Rob Rector)

Pre-screening memories: Before Braddock, before hawking gym equipment, before countless disfiguring facelifts, even before shilling for Mike Huckabee, Chuck Norris was in a Silent Rage!

Hot off of seeing Good Guys Wear Black, a young Rupert Pupkin swore he was born to be a karate man. His aspirations may have superceded his ability, but that failed to stop his desire from trying.

Take, for example, one particular day in grade school when young Rupert decided to test his abilities. He honed in on a pair of metal double doors that would be the inanimate recipient of his as-yet-untested high kick. In all his years, he knew these doors to be open and would swing wide under the pressure of his forceful foot.

As his running start grew to an airborne leap, Rupert extended his legs to blow open these metal barriers and thus demonstrate to the school his agility and perhaps one day follow in the deadly footsteps of his cinematic hero. Sadly, the doors were locked shut, thus ending Rupert’s short-lived dream to be a six-time karate champion like his then idol.

This did not stop him from spending time in the darkened theater with his matinee idol, though. And within months, he was back in the box office, relishing in another roundhouse romp in Silent Rage. But Rage was quite a different beast, he soon realized, and what he thought was to be a 90-minute class in ass kicking actually struck fear in his young heart, perhaps solidifying in his mind that the martial arts was not on the path of his future.

What struck fear into the heart of this young lad, and how has it affected him today?

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