HANNIBAL LECTER(ANTHONY HOPKINS)
FROM "THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS"
This is the villain that won the Oscar against Robert De Niro as Max Cady, and to be honest he deserves the Oscar because he's an iconic villain. Every scene you see him in is an epic win and to me is scarier than the films main villain Buffalo Bill. Why is he so scary, lets take a look.
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS
Before we meet the villain we get incredible scary build up
to him. The FBI supervisor Jack Crawford tells the main character Clarice to
not let Hannibal
get inside her head and Doctor Chilton tells her that "He's a monster"
and it's rare to capture him alive. After giving Clarice the rules of meeting Hannibal, he tells her a story about Hannibal complaining about chest pains and
was taken to the dispensary. When the nurse looked at him, he nearly killed her
by eating her flesh. Clarice then takes a slow terrifying walk down a dark
hallway while passing psychopaths in bared jail cells and as the intense just
builds and builds, we then finally meet Hannibal.
He's in a glass cell with air holes and he's already
standing up in the middle of his cell smiling, with his eyes in the darkness as
he politely greets the agent. Man what a creepy introduction because instead of
sitting down like most people do in prison, he's already standing as if he can
smell her coming in. Lecter then asks to see her ID credentials and tells her
to move closer and closer until we can see it clearly and once we do, Hannibal moves forward
and we see is bright blue evil eyes. Hannibal
feels insulted that an FBI trainee is testing him and refuses to take the test
but he decides to talk to Clarice. He tells her to sit down and then smells her
through the air holes, telling the frightened agent what she's wearing on her
skin and what she wore previously, which is plain just scary. He then shows her
drawings of places he remembers and tells her that memory is all he has. After
asking a question about the killer Buffalo Bill, he then decides to look at the
profile questionnaire and than tells Clarice about him knowing her Hillbilly
roots and asks about her father. Hannibal
then gives back the test to Clarice through a sliding food tray and tells her
that he ate a guy who tested him and slithers at Clarice. He then tells her to
"Fly back to school" and turns his back to her whispering in his
eerie voice” fly fly fly". After Clarice is harassed by an inmate an angry
Lecter who just developed Clarice as his love interest tells Clarice to come
back. He apologizes for the inmate’s action and instead of taking a test, he
decides to make Clarice happy and tells her to "look deep within
yourself" and look up a woman named Miss Moffet. After the first encounter
with Lecter we see a frightened Clarice run out of the asylum, has a flashback
of her father, and cries after meeting Lecter. This whole encounter is scary
because not only is the character scary and can smell things that not many
people can smell but he also tries to get into Clarices mind, that alone is
just petrifying.
Clarice looks up Miss Moffet and finds a separate head of a
man with make up on in an old storage garage called "Within Yourself"
and after this event, we then go to our second encounter with Hannibal. After Clarice asks him a few
questions, he responds by sliding a food tray with a rag on it and Clarice
accepts it which causes her to break one of the rule. As he sits in the
darkness, he tells her, that her bleeding has stopped from her scratch. Wow,
how the heck does he know all these things? He then tells her who Miss Moffet
really is and assures her that he didn't kill him. After asking her how she
felt when she saw the head, he then asks if Jack Crawford wants her sexually.
After that, the lights in his cell comes on and it appears that his drawings
are gone as punishment for killing the inmate who harassed Clarice and also has
to watch a gospel program on a TV in front of his cell. Hannibal then looks up
at the lights symbolizing the light of the sun and tells Clarice that he can
help her catch the killer if she can have him transported to an asylum with a
window, a library and to be far way from Dr.Chilton. This whole scene is
another scary sequence. Hannibal sitting in the darkness is scary as hell and
it hints that he killed the inmate as revenge for harassing Clarice and that he
might be jealous of Crawford who maybe hitting on his love.
Our third encounter with him is when Clarice lies to him
about transporting him to an asylum so she can get him to give her information
about Buffalo Bill. Hannibal
agrees but decides to play a little game of "Quid Pro Quo" with
Clarice. He'll give her information about Buffalo Bill but only if Clarice
tells him about her past and deepest darkest secrets. Clarice agrees and as you
watch their conversation, you see Hannibal’s
reflection on the glass where Clarice is, which shows that he's succeeded with
getting inside her mind.
Later we then see Hannibal
strapped onto a rolling hand truck in a strait jacket with a hockey mask on his
mouth so he won't bite a piece of someone's flesh. Chilton taunts Hannibal and tells him
that Clarice has lied to him about transporting him to another asylum which
makes a heartbroken Lecter whisper to himself "Clarice". Chilton
however, designed a deal for him to be transported but while he's telling him
that, Hannibal
just stares at Chiltons Pen that's lying on his bed. A few minutes later,
we see Lecter strapped on a hospital stretcher wearing a strait jacket and
wearing a monstrous looking face mask. As Chilton is about to sign him in
he forgot his Pen and the guards give him a pen, as Chilton signs him in, we
get a close up on Lecters face and that face hints that he has something
planned. Hannibal
gives the senator information of Buffalo Bill but also plays a little game of
"Quid Pro Quo" with her as well. As a disgusted senator leaves, he
comments on her suit which is referring to what Buffalo Bill does to his
victims.
Hannibal
is sitting in a temporary a cage until they can give him a cell with a view and
he's reading a book and as Clarice enters he greets her without even turning
around. Clarice came to give him his drawings and also because she wanted too. This
whole scene plays as horrific perverted parody of a love film. As Hannibal plays "Quid
Pro Quo" with her, she constantly circles around the cage to keep him in
view and when he's finally in view the camera zooms in closer and closer to
their faces in each shot which might show a love between them. When it's Lecter’s
turn to tell Clarice about the killer, he lets the guards take
her away because her time is up, Hannibal
gives her the case file and strokes her finger.
After this scene, Hannibal
makes one of the best escapes to ever be put on cinema. Before the escape we
see a drawing of Clarice with a lamb in her arms while Lecter listens to
classical music as he takes out a shiny silver metallic clip from Chilton's
missing pen. As the guards are about serve him extra rare lamb chops, they hand
cuff him to the bars of the cage and as they serve him, he picks the lock of
the cuffs with the clip. He then handcuffs a guard to the bars of the prison
and bites off a piece of flesh from the other guard and then smashes his head
on the iron bars and sprays mace in the guards eyes. As for the guard that's
handcuffed, he brutally beats the cop to death with a riot baton. He then gets
lost in the classical music, picks up a knife, and cuts off the wounded guards
face off screen. He ties up one dead guard on the cage of the cell, which
symbolizes Jesus Christ and Hannibal puts on the guards face like a mask
pretending to be a wounded guard, while the real dead guard is on top of the
elevator face down with Lecters prison clothes on. As Hannibal is put in the ambulance, he takes
off the mask, kills the people in ambulance off screen and it is mentioned in
dialogue that he killed a tourist and stole his clothes and cash.
The last and final time we see Lecter is he calls Clarice telling her he won't go after but cuts the conversation short because he's "having an old friend for dinner". After he hangs up the phone, we find out that he's in a tropical Island and the person that he's "having for dinner" is Dr.Chilton who has just arrived on the island. Hannibal puts on his hat and disappears into the crowd. Man what a great exit for a great villain.
Some people find Hannibal over the top or out of place but that's how he was written. Instead of seeing a criminal you'd meet on the street or in the darkness, he's a criminal you'd meet in a library or a fancy restaurant. What's also great about Hannibal is he's a classy psychopath. His well manners; intelligence to get inside peoples minds; eerie voice; cannibalistic instinct; villainous smile; and the fact that he can sense you and read you like a book is what makes him so scary. This villain not only won the Oscar but is also number 8 on The Nostalgia Critic's "Top 11 Scariest Performances"; number 7 on "Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments"; and is the number one villain the American Film institute list of top 50 Film villains.
"I ATE HIS LIVER WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CHIANTI (SLITHER)"
-Hannibal Lecter
Tune in next week for my number 1 favorite villain and my next top list!
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