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Special Silencers

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Special Silencers
Promotional release poster
Directed byArizal
Starring
Production
company
P.T. Parkit Films
Release date
  • 1982 (1982)
CountryIndonesia
LanguageIndonesian

Special Silencers (Indonesian: Serbuan Halilintar) is a 1982[note 1] Indonesian martial arts horror exploitation film directed by Arizal[1] and starring Barry Prima, Eva Arnaz and W. D. Mochtar. Prima plays Hendra, a man who arrives at a village where deaths are occurring as a result of red tablets—the titular "special silencers"—supplied by a forest-dwelling mystic; when ingested, the pills cause trees to burst from the consumer's stomach.[2][3]

The film's titular plot element may have been inspired by the chestburster scene in Alien (1979).[3][4]

Cast

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Release

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Distributor Mondo Macabro, who released the film on Blu-ray, identifies the film's release date as 1982.[1] Other sources, such as author Pete Tombs, have identified its release date as 1979,[4] but Mondo Macabro essayist Ekky Imanjaya writes, "I've had difficulties finding a valid source on the circulation of Special Silencers in the global film market in 1979. Most probably, it was sold straight to video."[5] The film received distribution across Indonesia in 1982, with cuts made to "sexually suggestive and sadistic scenes" due to censorship.[5]

Home media

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Special Silencers was released on VHS in the Netherlands in the 1980s.[6] A restoration of the film is set to be released on Blu-ray by Mondo Macabro in April 2024.[6][7]

Reception

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In 2015, author Clive Davies called Special Silencers "a ridiculous action/horror crossover [...] Unusual but slow-moving, until the exciting finale involving smelly shoe torture, rats, gore and booby traps."[3]

Notes

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  1. ^ See the Release section for details.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Newsletter #17". Mondo Macabro. Retrieved 22 June 2023.
  2. ^ Tombs 1998, p. 72–73.
  3. ^ a b c Davies, Clive (2015). Spinegrinder: The Movies Most Critics Won't Write About. Headpress. p. 896. ISBN 978-1909394278.
  4. ^ a b c Tombs 1998, p. 72.
  5. ^ a b Imanjaya, Ekka (2024). The Special Case of Special Silencers (Blu-ray booklet). Mondo Macabro. pp. 6–7.
  6. ^ a b "Special Silencers limited red case edition". Mondo Macabro. Archived from the original on 21 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  7. ^ "Mondo Macabro Presents Special Silencers". Horror Society. 19 February 2024. Retrieved 27 February 2024.

Bibliography

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