Quoting
quido8_5 (view post)
Now, this is based off two viewings approximately two decades ago, but I found Silence of the Lambs to be a really good, but not great, film. Although I don’t think its reputation has dimmed since the late ‘90s, early ‘00s, it was widely heralded as a bastion of how sophisticated the suspense/horror/thriller “genre” could be. Moreover, it was viewed as one of the greatest films of all time, one of the relatively few 90s films ranked in the AFI’s Top 100 Films of All Time, putting it at a surprising 65. In a not-uncommon phenomenon, a really good movie became one of minor gripes for me. Probably not fair and why it merits another viewing.
At the time of its release, Demme’s film was also described to me as a horror film and I wonder if this is somehow related to our discussion about modern serial killer films. Part of me wonders if the distinction lies not only with the visual depiction of the violence itself, but also the weight of the act on both killer and victim. Though it harkens back to M and Frenzy, particularly, “modern” serial killer films might be defined by their emphasis on this personified experience from both perspectives. For instance, the centripetal force of Se7en revolves around the murders themselves, with the implications on the characters fleshed out almost ancillary. Much of the film’s impact, for me at least, is the way in which the murders insinuate themselves into my own psyche. We investigate the murders at length, wonder what is the root cause, and, most importantly, reflect on the subjectively horrifying experience of the victim during the act of murder.
This is perhaps why I think Se7en might be a better demarcation of this incredibly random category, because it actually includes scenes that would induce horror (fear, shock, disgust) in a way that Silence doesn’t. While the subject matter of the latter is certainly horrifying, nothing in the content of the film remotely connects to “horror” in my mind. Part of me wonders if people made up for lost time in the horror area with Hannibal the movie (which I think sucks) and Hannibal the TV show (which I think kind of rocks), both of which have very explicit depictions of death from both Hannibal and the victim’s perspectives.