Review by Ben Bussey
Let’s start with the good news. It’s rare indeed that elderly actors and actresses get to be the focal point of modern films in general; let alone low budget comedy horrors. In setting the action in a retirement home and showing proceedings largely from the perspective of the residents, in particular the new arrival Rose (Dawn Wells), director/co-writer Jason Lockhart and co-writer/producer/actress Jacqui Holland have created something fairly bold and unusual with Silent But Deadly. Sure, we’ve had Bubba Ho-Tep, but that cast the somewhat younger Bruce Campbell under old-man make-up, and emphasised his alienation amidst the crumbling octogenarians. We almost never see old people presented simply as people; Silent But Deadly absolutely deserves credit for making efforts to redress that balance, challenging the manner in which society by and large tries to sweep the elderly under the carpet.
But that, as I said, was the good news. The bad news is, Silent But Deadly is a comedy horror movie which – no two ways about it – simply isn’t funny or scary in the slightest.
The plot isn’t too hard to surmise. Dumped in a gaudy retirement home by her apathetic career-oriented daughter, Rose finds herself taking the room of a previous tenant, who – though the overwhelmingly camp manager Dale (John Tartaglia) denies it – was brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. While befriending her new neighbours, Rose very quickly tires of being treated like a baby by Dale and the site’s ‘entertainment manger’ Kitty (the aforementioned Jacqui Holland) – but at the same time, she soon comes to fear that everyone in the retirement home could be in grave danger, quite literally.
Once again, movies which keep the focus on the elderly are few and far between, which probably explains how this clearly low budget production was able to attract so many recognisable actors of retirement age. Amomgst others we have David Proval, the esteemed Italian-American character actor famed for dropping Dracula out of a plane in The Monster Squad and getting shot by Tony Soprano’s sister; Martin Kove, best known as John Kreese in The Karate Kid, cannily cast here as a delusional Vietnam veteran; and Lee Meriwether, who played Catwoman against Adam West’s Batman. Old pros one and all, they do their utmost with what’s been given to them, and to be fair there are some moments that raise a giggle; we don’t even see subplots involving senior citizens contracting herpes, and I can’t be entirely down on a film which has a central conflict between two old women named Fanny and Wang.
Alas, Silent But Deadly falls flat on almost every other level. The slasher movie elements are underemphasised to the point we almost forget about them, and the identity and goal of the killer is almost instantly predictable. The scenes shifting the focus onto the younger players Tartaglia and Holland feel a bit forced and unnecessary; Tartaglia’s excessive swishiness and Holland’s exaggerated dumb blonde routine get tedious very quickly. It’s almost as though these elements were thrown in for fear of losing younger viewers altogether, given that we would assume a youthful audience is more likely to be drawn to a comedy horror movie than elderly viewers.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to say who Silent But Deadly is really intended for. Both as a horror and a comedy, it’s far too tame for modern sensibilities; whatever the title might imply, the humour for the most part isn’t especially crude, so anyone anticipating gross-out gags galore will be let down (originally it was entitled Hotel Arthiritis). And while it may touch on serious concerns about the treatment of the elderly it shies away from really tackling them head-on, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Once again, Silent But Deadly deserves credit for trying something different, but with real laughs and scares so very thin on the ground that simply isn’t enough to warrant praise.
Silent But Deadly is available on DVD and VOD from 25th February 2014.