As part of its recent campaign of catalogue "horror" titles to debut on Blu-ray, MGM/Fox Home Entertainment have released The Hannibal Lecter Collection to the devoted High Def fans of America's favorite fictional serial killer. This 3-disc set includes Michael Mann's Manhunter, Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs, and Ridley Scott's Hannibal.
Long before Anthony Hopkins colonized the role of Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, fellow British actor Brian Cox helmed the role in Michael Mann’s suspenseful 1986 psychological thriller, Manhunter. Unlike Brett Ratner’s lame-o remake, Red Dragon, Manhunter actually strikes a positive chord with viewers, introducing us to a young William Petersen as Will Graham, the former FBI man who caught Hannibal Lecktor (the spelling is changed in this version — go figure). But Graham’s life of early retirement after being sliced open by the psychotic Lecktor comes to an abrupt end when his old superior Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) asks for his assistance in profiling and capturing a killer dubbed “The Tooth Fairy.”
In this early adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (the title was changed for filmgoers following the box office meltdown of Year Of The Dragon), Lecktor is more of a secondary character (whereas the remake was specifically catered to the character and the then-current popularity of Hopkins’ Lecter), and only has a few scenes — but they are memorable nonetheless. The rest of the film is very Michael Mann, inhabiting a decidedly Mann-ish ‘80s soundtrack (which gave way to Hollywood’s current method of using recording artists’ works to add emotion to their films — a method filmmakers have since lost the “art” of), lengthy sequences, long camera angles, and a great central character (Petersen delivers a wonderful performance here in a role that pretty much paved the way for his CSI character, Gil Grissom).
Unfortunately, Manhunter did not become a big hit in the States. It has always been a favorite pick among those who actually saw it, but the character of Hannibal Lecktor/Lecter would have to wait a few more years to become a household name. Jonathon Demme’s The Silence Of The Lambs was an even lower-budgeted film than Mann’s, but between the director’s dark sense of humor and two breakthrough performances by then Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, the Orion-financed film became an International hit.
Article comments
1 - Baronius
I never bothered to see any of the movies after Manhunter. Sequels are always disappointing, and the Brian Cox character was perfectly unsettling. Lambs, from what I understand, just played out the same scenario, but less believably, and the rest were even more outlandish.
2 - Luigi Bastardo
LAMBS is really only the other one you need see, if to compare and contrast Cox and Hopkins' portrayals. You could probably go without seeing the rest of the series -- especially seeing as how badly they butchered some of them.
3 - El Bicho
"Sequels are always disappointing"
Godfather II
4 - Luigi Bastardo
Nice.