The Best and Worst of Psychological Horror
To understand why ‘Hannibal’ failed, we must first assess what made ‘Silence of the Lambs’ such a huge success.
I recently got the itch to revisit the 1991 psychological horror classic Silence of the Lambs. I say 'revisit' because I am confident that I had seen at least part of the movie at some point in my life before; however, I can not honestly remember having watched the film from start to finish before now. In remedying this, I found a movie that quickly rose into my top three horror flicks. As Hannibal Lector meanders the streets of what looks like Jamaica at the end, I found myself desiring more. Specifically, I wanted more of Anthony Hopkins as the titular cannibal serial killer. Lucky for me, Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, was available as well. Seeing that the sequel was directed by Ridley Scott (one of my all-time favorites) and written by David Mamet, I thought I had struck cinematic gold. Imagine my disappointment as I sat through 133 minutes of poorly paced drama masquerading as a psychological horror to make you cheer for a psychotic cannibal mastermind. Not only was the dialogue on the nose, and sometimes downright elementary, but the mood conveyed by the shots seemed to contradict the plot and characters. Worst of all, the film evoked only one primary emotion in me: boredom.
How could this happen? The formula, the talent, and the story were all packaged and presented to you on a silver platter. The fanbase was primed to support another great film, with hopes that Hannibal might do the unthinkable, much like its predecessor, and win Oscars left and right. Instead, we got... Hannibal. A slog spanning more than two hours that culminates in the torture of a character we do not care about and a resolution that makes no sense, all to glorify and humanize a character that, by all rights, should be revolting to us regardless of how well Mr. Hopkin's portrayal may be.
To understand why ‘Hannibal’ failed, we must first assess what made ‘Silence of the Lambs’ such a huge success.
Silence of the Lambs is a visual marvel. This is not the same 'visual marvel' as what we see in something like Avatar: The Way of Water, where the wonder comes at the hands of beauty, awe, and inspiration. Instead, Silence of the Lambs establishes its visual mastery by placing the audience's viewpoint in places that create an uneasy mood throughout the film. One way (of many) that this is achieved is we are given many POV shots from the perspective of our protagonist Clarice Starling. Played by Jodie Foster, Clarice is relatively short and slight in stature, which plays well with her POV shots as it causes all men to look down on her, giving them the classic and unsettling "Kubrick Stare." No matter how much their credentials might say otherwise, you never know who you can trust in the movie.
Everyone is using everyone, our hero is a competent woman in a man's world, which is unsettling in its own right, and our main villain, the grotesque transvestite code-named 'Buffalo Bill,' has a tragic backstory that humanizes him even though we see how sick and twisted he is. These things heighten the tension and drive the film to a terrifying climax. Couple the copious use of the "Kubrick Stare" with shots isolating our heroine, Anothy Hopkins' electric, albeit unsettling performance of Hannibal Lector, and a script that is as intriguing to follow as it is disconcerting to watch, and you have the makings of a film that deserves every accolade it has received and more.
Hannibal fails in almost every area that the first film succeeded. We do not fear Hannibal Lecter in this film; instead, we are encouraged to advocate for him. We are presented with a side villain whose appearance, mannerisms, and life station (a useless, decedent inheritor of obscene wealth) make him so easy to hate that it's almost silly, and his backstory merely makes us hate him more. The workplace antagonist that hounds Clarice is so unbelievable that we almost want to cheer when Hannibal starts feeding him his brains (when we manage not to get sick ourselves.) Clarice spends most of the movie pacing in an evidence basement, listening to voice recordings of Hannibal, but otherwise doing nothing to try and catch him. At the same time, Hannibal enjoys a leisurely life in Florence, Italy, until he's ready to return to the states to play a silly game of cat and mouse with our supposed hero.
For all his directorial prowess, Ridley Scott fails in this movie to convey anything resembling horror. Though tropes like the Kubrick Stare are unnecessary in a horror film, mood, and tone are necessary. After a massive success like Alien, one would think Ridley Scott would have no issues on this front; however it seems that Mr. Scott was still in the mindset of films akin to former works like Gladiator and later works such as Kingdom of Heaven.
Though I would not recommend either of these films to anyone younger than 17, I can say with certainty I would not recommend Hannibal to anyone. That said, if psychological 'who-dun-its' like Criminal Minds and CSI interest you, you owe it to yourself to give Silence of the Lambs your undivided attention.
