hannibal lecter Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Earlier this month a bunch of us came up with a list of the movie characters we'd love to have thanksgiving with. Now, here's the opposite. The title is pretty self-explanatory, so I don't need to set it up much. But as usual, we invite you to tell us of your own picks for worst Thanksgiving dinner guest. Please try to make it a movie character, though, because none of us know your annoying aunt, and plus this is a movie site.


Hannibal Lecter from Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising

If you were to have Dr. Lecter (Brian Cox; Anthony Hopkins; Gaspard Ulliel) to your Thanksgiving feast, you'd want to prepare and cook all the food yourself. Otherwise, you might end up eating human flesh instead of turkey (or turducken, or whatever non-people-based meal you prefer). Then again, you might actually end up the meal, which is certainly much worse than unknowingly tasting Ray Liotta's brains. So, the best thing is to not even invite the guy.


Graham Young from Young Poisoner's Handbook

Another character who might be an interesting guest, but like with Lecter, you'll need to keep an eye on the food, or at least on the tea. Graham (Hugh O'Conor), aka "the teacup murderer" likes to play with poison, and there's a good chance he's going to spike the dinner or drinks with thallium.

Sure, it's easy enough to find the up-side of the handsome hunks of horror film. Hunks are easy. They're (mostly) hot, with their nicely whitened teeth and their hair product-styled to perfection, their six-pack abs, their ... sorry, where was I? Oh, right. Hunks versus Slashers. Jeff and Monika have already brought you the hottest hunks and chicks of horror; guess who drew the short straw and had to pick the slashers? (Actually, I volunteered for this one, so I guess that says something freaky about me ... ) My mission: to determine the hottest horror slashers (at least, according to me). These are the bad boys of horror you just can't stop thinking about, the ones who keep popping up in your dreams ... or nightmares. Whether they slash with blades on their fingers, roque mallets, or your basic kitchen knife, these are the boys you don't want to bring home to introduce to the folks over Sunday dinner ... unless you want your family to be the main course.

Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates (Psycho) My mother always told me: Never date a mama's boy. Little Normie's devotion to his mother was sweet, sure, but his methods of showing it left a little to be desired. But you have to admit, there's something about a guy who might stab you through the shower curtain if the mood strikes that guarantees that you'll never be bored while getting ready for your big date night. Anthony Perkins' striking performance as Norman Bates set the bar for horror slashers for decades -- even after all these years, watching Psycho still sends shivers up your spine. (View the trailer for Psycho or go straight to the gallery!)

Doug Bradley as Pinhead (Hellraiser) Sure, all those nails stuck into his skull give new meaning to the word "hammered" -- not to mention making it a little tricksy to coordinate outfits for those hot dates to movie premieres -- but at least, in his own bizarrely twisted way, Pinhead had a sense of fair play. Of course, if you make the wrong choice, your evening is gonna go downhill in a hurry. There's nothing like giant fishhooks pulling your flesh 14 different ways to put a damper on date night. On the plus side, though, you're probably pretty safe being walked home after dinner by a guy who looks like he had a close encounter with a nail gun, on purpose. (View the trailer for Hellraiser ... or go straight to the gallery!)

Oftentimes Hollywood's lack of originality leads to overexposed trends. Remember when every action movie seemed to be easily defined as 'Die Hard on a ...'? Remember when disaster movies were all the rage? And then twenty years later when they were all the rage again? Remember when there were like a hundred body-swapping comedies? Well, there appear to be fewer trends these days, or maybe it's just that Hollywood turns trends into full-blown practices, as in the case of sequels, comic book movies and fantasy films based on literary franchises. Nowadays even a promised trend, like the one involving religious Passion of the Christ copycats, isn't necessarily going to happen. But despite there being so few here-today-gone-tomorrow film fads, there's at least seven bad ideas currently in vogue in Tinsel Town, and all of them need to disappear soon, lest they too become permanent.

1. Torture Porn

I'm going to start with an easy, surely obvious one. Torture porn is the latest trend in horror, a genre that changes its predominant style every few years, and it may be the most despised -- at least by us non-horror junkies. I miss the days when a friend, an actual junkie, could drag me to a harmless scary movie that provided a few screams, a few laughs and afterward, at the most, a few silly nightmares. Now, with each new horror movie there's promise of a seriously depressing experience. After watching The Hills Have Eyes, I realized I hadn't been frightened at all. Instead I wanted to cry my heart out. I haven't been to a horror flick since, and my friend is going solo. Sure, I hear that Eli Roth's movies are a lot more enjoyable than watching a young woman raped while watching her father burned alive and her mother raped and then shot in the head, but I just haven't been in the mood to find out.

Apparently the torture porn trend is already on its way out. Hostel II performed poorly at the box office and Captivity may have peaked too soon, reaching maximum tastelessness before even opening in theaters. So what will be next? I'm rather looking forward to when slasher movies are in fashion again, when I can delight in seeing sinful human beings killed off quickly and deservedly by an implausible maniac. Which brings me to the next trend ...

If your favorite restaurant were run like Hollywood, your dining experiences would go like this: One night, you would have a meal where everything worked: Crisp salad, well-made main course, excellent side dishes, ace dessert, the perfect wine. Heck, you even though the parsley sprig was a jaunty touch. You'd be saying this as you left, and the maitre'd would hear you and write a note down. The next time you go there, you're offered ... a huge plate with two pounds of parsley on it. This is what's happened with the character of Hannibal Lecter. Lecter was a minor character in Thomas Harris's 1981 book Red Dragon; he re-appeared in 1988's The Silence of the Lambs with an expanded role, but was still one character among many.

Silence of the Lambs got made into a 1991 movie -- a disposable January thriller release most notable for Anthony Hopkins's homicidal hissy-fit turn as Lecter -- that went on to win five separate Oscars. Interestingly, super-producer Dino De Laurentiis -- who had made Red Dragon into Michael Mann's Manhunter -- had the right of first refusal to any subsequent on-screen use of the characters, and passed on Silence of the Lambs. (Manhunter was a flop; it's also, unequivocally, the best mystery of the lot, and it holds up far, far better than every Harris adaptation -- even Silence of the Lambs.)

Last time we talked about Hannibal Rising, it was when a German teaser trailer hit the interwebs and informed us that our favorite cannibal has somehow always had a thing for creepy bite-masks, but now with the arrival of this more traditional theatrical trailer, we seem to have a better grasp on what the prequel's all about. (And by "traditional" I mean "it gives away all the good stuff.") Basically, take the most obvious prequel concept you can imagine (he's younger ... and he still kills people!) and just go from there.

Y'know ... I've been pretty down on this project from the word go, but I'd be lying if I said the trailer did absolutely nothing for me. Even if the flick's just a well-shot period-piece slasher-type confection, I bet I could have a pretty good time with Hannibal Rising. (Maybe.) Written by Thomas Harris (adapted from the novel by, yes, Thomas Harris) and directed by the man who last brought you Girl with a Pearl Earring, HR seems to promise (at the very least) a juicily slimy lead performance by Frenchman Gaspard Ulliel as, yes, Hannibal Lecter. Well, the young version of Hannibal Lecter who stalks, slices and snacks on the evil bastids what killed his family in the war, anyway. And since it's an absolute certainty that this hero villain will survive the slaughters, I guess Hannibal Rising WILL exist as just a well-shot-period-piece slasher flick. We shall see. ...

Plus the supporting cast is suitably colorful: We got Dominic West, Rhys Ifans, Gong Li and Kevin McKidd, so that helps a little. The flick opens (wide, get it?) on February 9, and if you're worried about the content, gorehounds, you needn't bother: Hannibal Rising is rated R for "strong grisly violent content and some language/sexual references."

(Feedback request: What did you think of the new trailer? I want to hear from the long-time Lecterites and the series newbies as well.)

I don't know about you, but I've grown more than a little weary of the whole "Hannibal Lecter" thing. Anthony Hopkins did some seriously stunning work in The Silence of the Lambs, to be sure, but this series has been treading water ever since that flick won Best Picture. (It was the source material that damned Hannibal and Brett Ratner who demolished Red Dragon -- but if you've never seen Lecter's "true" origin film, I'd certainly recommend Michael Mann's Manhunter.)

And yeah, there's another chapter coming. Looks like it's prequel time, what with Anthony Hopkins getting older and more expensive to hire and all...

The long-gestating Hannibal Rising comes from novelist/screenwriter Thomas Harris ... and the director of Girl with a Pearl Earring, surely an unbeatable duo where horror prequel afterthoughts are concerned. Sorry to sound so dismissive, mainly because Hannibal Rising could be a great movie for all I know, but based on what I've been reading (and what's offered in this German teaser trailer), this thing feels like the Basic Instinct 2 of the Lecter series.

Gaspard Ulliel is the one donning the "bite mask" (the presence of which is exceedingly silly, as if Hannibal Lecter just claimed his own Jason-style hockey mask gimmick) this time around and he'll be surrounded by folks like Gong Li, Rhys Ifans, Kevin McKidd and Dominic West. For those who simply can't wait until February 9 to see what the young Hannibal is up to, feel free to read the book. It just hit the shelves this week.

[Thanks to BD.com for the tip.]

I really like Anthony Hopkins, especially as the vicious sociopath Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. It was one of his greatest roles and a character that left a lasting impression on me and audiences around the world.

To be honest though, I didn't love the sequel and prequel to Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal and Red Dragon), or Hopkin's performances in them, nearly as much. Although, the lack of quality of those films was not solely Hopkins' fault -- Ridley Scott and Brett Ratner, I'm talking to you.

And if we are being completely honest here, I actually thought the underrated Brian Cox did a terrific job as Lecter in Manhunter -- Michael Mann's version of Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon. But I guess that's an argument for another day because we've got some much more current Lecter news to get to.

In an effort to squeeze every single last penny out of the Lecter character and the Silence of the Lambs "franchise," yet another movie featuring Lecter -- this time during his formative years as he learns his deadly craft -- has been made -- and its called Hannibal Rising. We've covered the film before (and very well, I might add) and now we have visuals to go with the words -- a new poster! If its your thing, I hope you enjoy it. If not, let's try to forget about the whole thing, shall we?