I know I'm practically the only person on the planet who hadn't seen this movie, it was on my watch list, and can now be crossed off. Starring Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster my friends and I watched this accompanied with a 2008 Chianti. I found the intro long and unnecessary, the only information it really told us was that the leading lady was in FBI training, she's just running and running, and then she runs some more. She is interrupted during her ridiculously long run and told that she needs to speak to her supervisor, he informs her that she'll be interviewing Hannibal Lecter. Buffalo Bill is at large, skinning women and depositing their bodies. In the background of the supervisors office is a news clipping that says BILL SKINS FIFTH, which is if you ask me a very crude news heading in regards to the family of the victim.
When the adorably twangy Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) arrives at the asylum to meet 'Hannibal the Cannibal' (Anthony Hopkins), they give her some ground rules, that you can not trust him in any circumstance, that he will literally eat you... They describe him as a monster and after the security measures she witnesses and the greeting she receives from Hannibal's neighbors, the fear is already racing through her. The asylum is a dark and eerie place, with exposed brick, it's the perfect setting for the criminally insane. He is standing in his cell like a gentleman ready to greet her, however, that image is very startling and unexpected, he appears willing to talk to her and he seems to find her charming and sweet, however vulnerable and nervous, though she is trying to appear as confident as possible. You can only imagine what she is thinking, being not only a woman but, a trainee, and speaking to an infamous killer, who is not only a killer, but a psychiatrist, and not only is he a killing psychiatrist, he is a killing psychiatrist who EATS people. You instantly see how intelligent and charming he is, not frightening at all. He is able to read Clarice like a book and makes her uncomfortable, however there is immediately a connection between the two of them.
Soon, Clarice gets involved in the Buffalo Bill investigation. You are introduced to a woman who is jamming out to a great Tom Petty classic in her car when she is driving home, she is likable enough, and then she sees a man in her parking lot struggling with an easy chair he is trying to get into the back of a van and she breaks the first rule of being a woman, helping a sketchy man near the back of a van.... You soon learn that he is abducting women who wear size 14 clothes, because he is making a coat of their skin that he can wear around for his own sick enjoyment. He kidnaps them, puts them in a deep well in his very creepy home, keeps them for 3 days making them put lotion on their skin to make it soft and then kills & skins them. This movie came out in 1991 and the subject matter is frankly pretty disturbing, even now in the era of CSI and daily hour long crime dramas. The investigators turn to a cannibalistic madman to help solve a case regarding a gender confused man that is not only killing and torturing women, he is planning to wear their skin on top of his own and the whole time is quite possibly doing serious damage to the needle on his sewing machine.
I loved this movie, and I found it annoying how everyone I spoke to about it said it was 'so scary' it dissuades people from watching it, I didn't find it frightening at all. It was well done, perfectly acted and the cinematography was brilliant. I'd suggest this for anyone, you may just not want to eat for awhile before or after watching depending on how weak your stomach is. Farewell for now & happy viewing!
