The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Last weekend we settled down to watch The Silence of the Lambs, the big-5 Oscar winner (see It Happened One Night) and all round masterpiece, with genuine scares and twists. It was the 3rd or 4th time I've seen it Andrew had managed to miss it in 26 years! So although he'd seen the ubiquitous parodies (such as in our recently watched Loaded Weapon 1) he'd not enjoyed this slice of quality cinema. 

As you can tell, I like it. Watching it again after many years, I found more qualities to enjoy. It always surprises me how little Anthony Hopkin's Hannibal Lecter actually appears in the movie, and how his story is not the one driving the plot, that honour goes to Buffalo Bill and his truly creepy intent to make a human suit out of human skin. Pleasant. Jodie Foster is phenomenal as Clarice Starling, and I can't help but see her as a proto-Scully, being a massive X-Phile and all. There's so much going on beneath the surface with Foster, and every uncomfortable moment makes you squirm watching her, particularly when Hannibal is psyching her out. 

I've never really noticed the camera techniques that director Jonathan Demme uses. The close, straight on shots of Hannibal or Clarice, or the Clarice-POV shots, where everyone who's staring strangely at the young FBI cadet is also staring at the audience, are effective and unnerving. Demme really draws the audience in. It's also surprising how un-graphic some of the more horrible sequences are. Sure there are spurts of blood here and there and at one point Hannibal wears someone else's skinned face... but the camera doesn't dwell on the gore like some of today's gornography-fests. A lot of the gruesomness is got across by using graphic wordplay and suggestion, which is always a lot scarier since you have to use your imagination. 

For my money, the scariest moment in any movie I've seen - and by scary I don't mean a shock or something that jolts you out of your seat, there are so many of those! - occurs during the last 15 minutes of the movie. As Clarice fumbles about in the pitch-black basement of Buffalo Bill's house, we see from Bill's POV through green-hued night-vision goggles as he watches her. And then he reaches out, almost touching her... Every time it sends shivers through my spine. Again, it's the fear of the unseen horror, rather than a gory, nose-biting splurge that terrifies. After watching the film, we viewed the (brief) outtakes on the second DVD, which does a lot to disperse any left over tension. This is one of my top 10 favourite movies.