As entertaining as Ridley Scott’s sequel was, and as much as I could bear through the Brett Ratner prequel, my vision of Hannibal will always be Jonathan Demme’s SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It’s just brilliant filmmaking to introduce Lecter’s crimes and savagery in a meeting between Chilton and Clarice before we actually lay eyes on the villain. We are expecting to meet a raging maniac, but instead we (and Clarice) are greeted by someone who, quite frankly, is better than us: highly intelligent, gracious, charming and extremely well-spoken.

There is no wasted thoughts or words in Hannibal Lecter. His powers of deduction, character analysis and ability to control the gameboard are almost supernatural (it’s as if Sherlock Holmes or Professor X went very, very wrong). But he is a maniac hiding in plain sight. Nothing will compare to his breakout in the Tennessee courthouse and what he does to Sergeants Tate and Pembry (his dispatching of Chief Inspector Pazzi — a favorite subplot of mine in HANNIBAL — is just as horrifying, but more cruel than sadistic).

I consider the Lecterverse (I won’t forgive myself for writing that) a variation on the Universal Monsters, updating old horror characters for the modern age. Francis Dollarhyde/The Red Dragon is a variation on Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein’s creature: a patchwork monster created by his grandmother, forever divorced from society, sympathy and humanity. Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill is the werewolf myth (a man who is transforming into something else). Lecter, being the “prince” of the monsters, is our modern modification of Count Dracula: European, cordial, aristocrat in spirit. Lecter, like the vampire, literally consumes us, has the ability to entrance us (psychologically) and create minions (he sics Dollarhyde on Will Graham’s family). Like horror tales of old, those who fight evil often succumb to it (Will Graham shatters emotionally, Clarice in the novels essentially becomes Lecter’s bride). Evil will always have a way of corrupting the best of us, and the best in us.

Lecter: “You’re very frank, Clarice. I think it would be quite something to know you in private life.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5dA92wqmME