THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - #1 IN A TERRIFYING TRIO OF CLASSIC HORROR FILMS FINALLY TICKED OFF ON MY 'MUST-SEE' MOVIES LIST

 

Three publicity posters for The Silence of the Lambs, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and The Howling (© Jonathan Denne/Strong Heart Productions/Orion Pictures / © Wes Craven/New Line Cinema/Media Home Entertainment/Smart Egg Pictures / © Joe Dante/International Film Investors/Wescom Productions/Embassy Pictures/Studiocanal – all three illustrations reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair use basis for educational/review purposes only)

With the notable exception of its monster movie/creature feature contingent, horror has never been one of my favourite movie genres, so my viewing history of such films contains as many gaps and holes in it as a piece of fine filigree lace or a hunk of finest Swiss cheese!

Every so often, however, I do make an attempt at amends to my feeble record of horror watching, and during the past 12 months(ish) I finally – finally! – got around to viewing three absolute classics from this genre. Namely, The Silence of the Lambs, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and The Howling. So here over the next few days are my thoughts about them, beginning today with The Silence of the Lambs.

 

 

My 2-disc Special Edition DVD of The Silence of the Lambs (© Jonathan Denne/Strong Heart Productions/Orion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 13 December 2021, I filled another of the many gaping holes in my blockbuster movie viewing, due to my passion and over-riding preference for seeking out and watching lesser-known, esoteric films instead, by finally getting around to viewing – only 30 years after it was released – none other than the multi-Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs!

Directed by Jonathan Demme, based upon the 1988 Thomas Harris novel of the same title, and released in 1991 by Orion Pictures, any movie that can win all of the 'Big Four' Academy Awards – Best Picture, Director, Leading Actor, and Leading Actress – as well as a fifth one for Best Adapted Screenplay, has to be something truly extraordinary, and this movie definitely was. Indeed, what can I say about it that hasn't already been said at greater length, in greater depth, and including greater detail by others? But here goes anyway.

Unless you've been living on the moon or down a cave since the onset of the 1990s, you'll know that the central character in The Silence of the Lambs is a brilliant but twisted psychologist whose cannibalistic tendencies have led to his being incarcerated within the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, boasting as much security as Fort Knox. However, he is sufficiently intrigued by a young rookie cop and her bravery in visiting his caged cell to seek his assistance in tracking down another warped serial killer for him to actually agree to do so, after a fashion…

 

A singularly chilling publicity poster for The Silence of the Lambs (© Jonathan Denne/Strong Heart Productions/Orion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Consequently, I was actually surprised by the relatively short amount of screen time occupied by Anthony Hopkins as Dr Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter (less than 25 minutes out of this movie's 118-minute total running time), but he makes every second count, in mesmerisingly menacing fashion, employing a reptile's unnervingly low frequency of eye blinks coupled with a voice that Hopkins memorably described as a combination of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn. (Incidentally, other actors who had been considered for the role of Lecter included Sean Connery, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Louis Gossett Jr, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Hurt, Jeremy Irons, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Jack Nicholson, and Patrick Stewart.)

It is also without question the best performance by Jodie Foster that I have ever seen (she won the role over the likes of Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Meg Ryan). The climactic scene where her rookie FBI officer Clarice Starling (a character that apparently inspired the creation of Agent Dana Scully in The X Files) is trapped with skin-stripping serial killer Jame 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb (Ted Levine) inside his house's pitch-black labyrinthine basement is almost literally heart-stopping – I caught myself physically holding my breath on more than one occasion during it. And the clever twist that reveals her to be there unsupported by any other officers is very slickly presented, big-screen legerdemain of the highest calibre. Ditto for Lecter's ingeniously macabre escape scene. Also, be sure to look out for brief cameo appearances in acting roles by acclaimed horror-movie directors David Lynch and George A. Romero, as well as by this movie's own director, Jonathan Demme.

If I had a moan after watching this movie, it was of a wholly zoological nature, inasmuch as the deathshead hawk moth Acherontia atropos (click here for my ShukerNature blog's coverage of this spectacular insect), which features so intrinsically in it and is so striking in the adult moth form, is barely seen in close-up – only the chrysalis and one very brief albeit key view of an adult moth inside BB's house. Other than that, they simply fly around with no visuals highlighting this species' characteristic deathshead-like thoracic marking, which by contrast is readily visible in most (although by no means all) publicity material.

However, following an investigation of this apparent anomaly, I discovered the likely reason for it. Namely, the moths that were actually filmed for this movie were not genuine deathshead hawk moths – instead, they were tobacco hornworm moths Manduca sexta, with the deathshead marking painted onto a body shield fixed to their thorax! Nor was that the only lepidopteran subterfuge used. For if you look very closely at the deathshead on the moth's thorax in this film's publicity material, you'll discover that it's not the genuine skull simulacrum present on this insect species' thorax but is in fact an exact reproduction in miniature of the famous surrealist picture 'In Voluptas Mors' ('Voluptuous Death') by Salvador Dali, maestro of the macabre, in which the 'skull' is actually composed of seven naked women!

 

Composite illustration showing how Salvador Dali's artwork 'In Voluptas Mors' was subtly incorporated into publicity illustrations for The Silence of the Lambs (© Salvador Dali Estate / (© Jonathan Denne/Strong Heart Productions/Orion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Moth manipulations aside, The Silence of the Lambs is a terrific tour-de-force, and became the first horror movie ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. Earlier on 13 December, I'd bought on spec for 50p the 2-disc Special Edition DVD of it, with the second disc (still to watch) containing deleted scenes, interviews, and much more, so I had a great find, with both discs in mint condition too. And as a big Edward Norton fan, I've also bought the DVD of Red Dragon (2003), a prequel movie to The Silence of the Lambs, in which his character pursues and finally snares Lecter, thereby ending his killing spree and beginning his caged imprisonment where Clarice later meets him for the first time.

Finally: if you've never watched The Silence of the Lambs (or read the Thomas Harris novel on which it is based), you may be wondering what its title means in relation to the movie. As a youngster, Clarice lived on her uncle's ranch, which had sheep. One early morning she awoke to the sounds of screaming from terrified lambs in the slaughterhouse close by, so she crept inside, hoping to rescue them, but only succeeded in running away with a single lamb. However, she felt that even the saving of one might somehow contribute to the saving of all of them, thereby stopping their screaming and restoring the silence. Now, as an adult FBI officer, she is still heavily influenced by this traumatic experience, inasmuch as she is fervently hoping that if she can rescue Buffalo Bill's latest abductee, a senator's daughter, it will bring to an end his history of kidnap and murder, thereby saving other potential victims and thus restoring to these human lambs the silence of safety.

If like me you have somehow managed not to see this movie during the three decades that have passed since its release, be sure to click here to view on YouTube an official trailer for it in order to discover just what you've been missing – while watching it you could even open a nice Chianti and have an old friend for dinner!

Also, be sure to check out here at Shuker In MovieLand my thoughts regarding the second member of this terrifying trio of horror movies very belatedly watched by me – A Nightmare On Elm Street. Don't miss it!

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Illustration of a genuine deathshead hawk moth (public domain)

 

DOWN IN THE VALLEY

 

Publicity poster for Down in the Valley (© David Jacobson/THINKFilm/Element Films/Summit Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I recently watched a movie described as a neo-Western, a somewhat unusual choice for me as I am not normally a fan of Westerns, neo- or otherwise. But as it starred Edward Norton, a favourite actor of mine ever since I first saw him many years ago in one of my all-time favourite movies, Fight Club, I thought that I'd give it a go, and I'm very pleased that I did, because it proved to be unexpectedly compelling.

Directed and also written by David Jacobson, with Edward Norton as one of its producers and editors as well as its lead star, Down in the Valley was released by Summit Entertainment in 2005, and centres upon Harlan Fairfax Curruthers, an ostensibly affable if delusional 30-something James Dean lookalike drifter played by Norton.

We are introduced to Harlan when he has a chance encounter one day while working as a petrol-pump (gas-station) attendant in the San Fernando valley region of Los Angeles with late-teenager Tobe (short for October), played by Evan Rachel Wood. She is in a car with some female friends, and they stop at the station en route to their beach destination in order to fill up with fuel. Tobe and Harlan start chatting, and before we know it he has impulsively quit his job, in order to join them in their car as they drive to the beach. Here Tobe and Harlan spend the day playfully frolicking together in the sea, before going back to Harlan's sparse apartment for some rather more serious frolics.

When Tobe returns her own home, however, she is met by her enraged, overbearing father Wade (David Morse), who smashes the door of her bedroom in fury when she refuses to tell him what she has been doing that day, while her timid younger brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin, the real-life younger brother of Macauley) looks on nervously. Nevertheless, Tobe and Harlan subsequently meet up and go out together on several occasions, but when Harlan turns up at her home, Wade is decidedly unimpressed by him, and tells him so in no uncertain terms, with his pistol pointed directly at Harlan's brow during one particularly fraught, challenging altercation.

Harlan seemingly takes it all in his stride, however, maintaining an affable, genial façade, and in both his cowboy attire and his matching mode of speech, not to mention his highly-tuned sharpshooting abilities, portrays himself to Tobe as a former ranch-hand, accustomed to working with horses in the great outdoors. He even takes her for a ride on a beautiful white horse upon land belonging to someone he claims to be an old friend named Charlie – until a furious 'Charlie' (Bruce Dern) appears on the scene, claims not to be named Charlie and never to have seen Harlan before, and threatens to have him arrested for stealing his horse, even though, to be fair, Harlan had already returned it.

After interviewing everyone back at the station, the police decide not to take matters further, but the first seeds of doubt regarding Harlan's authenticity have been sown in Tobe's mind – as well they might, because throughout the movie the viewer, unlike Tobe, has been privy to Harlan's effortless ability to lie, and his unhealthy obsession with a cowpoke lifestyle that he has clearly never experienced in real life, only inside the confines of his own unbalanced mind.

Finally, however, when Tobe learns that one afternoon, when Harlan had come round to her home and found her gone, he had taken Lonnie out instead and taught the young boy how to shoot a pistol, she  has to accept the truth, that her much older boyfriend is also much more dangerous than she could ever have anticipated. But her realization comes almost too late – during a heated argument resulting from Harlan earnestly begging her to leave home and come away with him, bringing Lonnie too if he'd like to join them, Tobe loses her temper, and Harlan's hair-trigger grasp upon reality finally snaps, as he responds to Tobe's perceived aggression in the time-honored pistol-toting cowboy tradition…

Thinking that he has killed her, Harlan flees and even shoots himself glancingly in order to hide the blood that had spurted on him from Tobe's gunshot wound and to lie to Lonnie that Wade had encountered them together and had shot both of them. Because Harlan has always been kind to Lonnie (in stark contrast to how Wade habitually treats him), when he asks Lonnie to flee with him, the boy agrees, and after stealing the white horse from 'Charlie', they ride off together into the hills. But Wade, the police,, and 'Charlie' are all in swift pursuit, Wade having found Tobe and taken her to the hospital in time for her life to be saved, the police having exposed Harlan in their records as a charlatan criminal named Martin, and 'Charlie' having lost his prized horse once again to him.

I won't say how this sad saga ends, though I think that you can probably guess, especially as almost every cowboy-related movie has a climactic shoot-out, and the very last scene, featuring Tobe, Lonnie, and (after a fashion) Harlan, is especially poignant. Indeed, I found the whole movie unexpectedly affecting, and Norton's performance as Harlan especially so – no-one could have portrayed this complex, charismatic character more effectively. But therein lies what, at least for me, was the central, core issue that I had with Down in the Valley.

By rights, Harlan should have come across as the bad guy, the duplicitous, delusional, pathological psycho, with Wade as the good guy, the honourable father protecting his daughter and young son at all costs from this unhinged drifter's inimical influence. In reality, however, their roles are reversed. For until he is pushed too far by the highly combustible combination of Wade's raw hostility and Tobe's inability and/or reluctance to commit fully to him, Harlan is easy going, laid back, and invariably gentle both to Tobe and to Lonnie (who eventually comes to idolize him). Wade, conversely, is not just domineering to the point of coming across as a total control freak, he is also physically brutal, cowing Lonnie in particular to such an extent that the boy is virtually monosyllabic throughout – except, that is, when, tellingly, he is in Harlan's company, where he relaxes and learns to laugh and enjoy his life, away from hyper-volatile Wade.

Consequently, even though as a viewer I was indeed privy to the secret, delusional side of Harlan's character, I couldn't help but root for this rather sad, lonely guy who seems so out of kilter with the world around him, rather than for the decidedly unsympathetic, bullish character of Wade. Indeed, I cannot help but wonder whether, if Harlan had not been hassled and hustled so much by Wade, the lethal facet of his sham cowboy persona would have ever been unleashed. Perhaps he and Tobe, and possibly with Lonnie in tow too, would have lived happily ever after, after all – who can say?

Described by one reviewer as Norton's best film since Fight Club, Down in the Valley is one of those deep-rooted, thought-provoking movies that stays with you long after its closing credits have rolled, and I can certainly recommend it to anyone interested in viewing something off the beaten track, in every sense.

Moreover, if you'd like a taster of what to expect from Down in the Valley, be sure to click here to watch an official trailer for it on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

ISLE OF DOGS

 

Publicity poster for Isle of Dogs (© Wes Anderson/Studio Babelsberg/Indian Paintbrush/American Empirical Pictures/Fox Searchlight Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 21 February 2021, I watched on TV the stop-motion animated feature film Isle of Dogs, but it was not at all what I was expecting.

Directed by Wes Anderson, and released in 2018, Isle of Dogs sported a visual format that was very different from anything that I'd seen before, featuring over 1000 puppets for animation use. Yet somehow it was all a little too strange, too odd, to capture my interest and enduring attention, although I did watch it through to the end.

Isle of Dogs is set in a fictional Japanese prefecture, and its storyline is all about a corrupt cat-loving, dog-hating mayor, Kenji Kobayashi, whose cohorts have covertly created a dog flu that may jump to the human population, the risk of it doing so thereby giving him the excuse to banish all dogs in the prefecture to a trash-filled offshore island (the Isle of Dogs after which this movie is named). However, his young ward, Atari, sets off to rescue his beloved former canine guard, Spots, and, in so doing, uncovers the dastardly doings of his human guardian.

The dogs all speak American English (voiced by the likes of Bryan Cranston as Chief, Edward Norton as Rex, Bill Murray as Boss, Jeff Goldblum as Duke, Scarlett Johansson as Nutmeg, Harvey Keitel as Gondo, F. Murray Abraham as Jupiter, and Tilda Swinton as Oracle), the humans in Japanese, but with the helpful device of an American newscaster translating their dialogue, plus on-screen plot explanations, Having said that, these latter explanations are presented in such minute typeface and for such brief appearances that they are all but unreadable and therefore virtually useless.

Such a quirky movie as Isle of Dogs needs some quirky facts to go with it, so here are four (but there are plenty more, I assure you). When said quickly, 'Isle of Dogs' becomes 'I love dogs', which is what this film is all about. It was produced in East London at a studio just 3 miles away from a genuine area known as Isle of Dogs. Anjelica Huston is the voice of a mute poodle (don't ask me, I only write this stuff!). And in its Japanese version, fluent Japanese-speaking Yoko Ono, who voices in the English version an assistant scientist named…Yoko-ono, is overdubbed by a Japanese actress (which seems barking, if you ask me!).

I'm assuming that the humour in this movie was intended to come across as deadpan or at least laconic, but instead it merely seems stilted and uncomfortable, not so much throwaway as thrown away. All in all, Isle of Dogs is very weird and even slightly unsettling in parts, I felt. So although I know that it has a major fan base, and was even nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, but didn't win either of them, losing out to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Black Panther respectively), this canine-themed animated film is not my box of dog biscuits at all, I'm afraid.

However, you may well feel differently, so please click here to check out an official Isle of Dogs trailer on YouTube, and decide for yourself whether this mutt-themed movie is for you.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

 

BIRDMAN

 

Meet Birdman, from Birdman (© Alejandro G. Iñárritu/Regency Enterprises/New Regency/M Productions/Le Grisbi Productions/TSG Entertainment/Worldview Entertainment/Fox Searchlight Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

A couple of months ago I posted on Facebook the Rotten Tomatoes list of its Top 100 Movies of All Time (click here to access it), and on 28 January 2021 I watched the DVD of #89 on it, Birdman. This must surely be the oddest movie ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, which it did in 2015 at the 87^th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Nevertheless, as a big fan of the super-hero movie genre I fully expected to be pleasantly surprised by this film. Let's just say that I was surprised by it…

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and released in 2014, Birdman focuses upon long-since faded actor Riggan Thomson (played by Michael Keaton). Two decades earlier, Thomson had been a major movie star, thanks to his massively successful on-screen role as super-hero Birdman – a bizarre character garbed in cerulean-hued avian attire complete with a sizeable pair of fully-feathered, fully-functional wings whose mighty pinions enable him to soar through the sky in pursuit of villains and other ne'er-do-wells.

At the very peak of his – and Birdman's – popularity, however, Thomson abruptly quit the role, and subsequently sank into obscurity. Now, he is attempting to make a belated comeback, but on his own terms, by directing and also starring in a Broadway play that he considers to be a worthy, literary production that will win him the critical acclaim that he always longed for, rather than the public adoration accorded him by his blockbuster Birdman movies.

Unfortunately, however, Thomson's hopes are not being realized, with Fate seemingly determined to thwart them at every available opportunity, and when his play's co-star is abruptly taken out of action via a bizarre freak accident, only to be replaced by a famous but infuriatingly pedantic method actor named Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), events rapidly go from already bad to even worse. Moreover, in an attempt to keep a close watch over his teenage daughter Sam (Emma Stone), a former drug addict, and help her stay on the straight and narrow, Thomson employs her as his PR, but as Sam clearly despises him and has no interest in the theatre, this plan is not working out too well either.

And as if all of these woes were not enough for him to deal with during his increasingly desperate attempts to turn impending disaster into increasingly unlikely success, Thomson is persistently mocked and psychologically undermined by a voice that may or may not be inside his head but which is apparently that of his former movie alter-ego Birdman, who alternately commands and cajoles him to forgo his futile attempts to be a worthy actor and return instead to being a mega-successful one in his Birdman role. We also see Thomson apparently performing some of his erstwhile super-hero feats in reality, such as telekinesis and levitation, but only ever when he is alone, never when anyone else is with him – so is he really doing this, or only imagining that he is? Ditto with the voice of Birdman – only Thomson hears it, no-one else does.

All very weird to say the least, replete with unresolved fantastical versus psychological ambiguity, but also, fatally, containing what proved for me to be some insurmountable, inescapable distractions. Namely, Keaton's perpetual, largely-unintelligible mumbling (he should have taken note of co-star Norton's lucid diction), and, above all else, the near-perpetual racket of a guy playing a full drum kit for no discernible reason other than to make hearing what the cast are saying even more difficult.

Why this insistent, almost incessant drumming through the film? The drummer and his drum kit are even seen on occasion – busking on the pavement outside the theatre, for example, and within an otherwise empty room inside the theatre, so it isn't just a soundtrack idiosyncrasy. No doubt this pernicious paradiddling has some deep symbolic meaning that will resonate with avant-garde aficionados, but for poor simple me it was just an ongoing aural annoyance that helped make some virtually inaudible dialogue even more so. And who thought it a clever idea for the performers to deliver their mumbling not only against an auditory backdrop of drumming but also with their backs to the camera sometimes, so that even lip-reading was foiled?

With these notable negatives added to what was in any case for me a turgid, often ridiculous plot, after watching halfway through Birdman I actually paused my DVD of it and left it alone for about an hour, in order to give my pained ears and numbed brain a chance to recover before ploughing through its second half.

This latter half was marginally better, but only because Birdman himself finally made his long-anticipated visual debut (as opposed to merely his disembodied voice throughout the first half), albeit only in an all-too-brief single scene (not counting his 'blink and you'll miss him' appearance sitting on the toilet near the movie's end...). As already noted above and also seen in this review's opening image, Birdman's costume is spectacular, especially his wings. Why, therefore, didn't he feature more extensively in the film, and Thomson's self-indulgent, self-pitying navel-gazing scenes less so?

After all, it is Birdman who is the novelty, the quirk, that sets this movie apart and defines it (hence its title, Birdman). So why utilise him so sparingly, relegated to little more than a walk-on (or fly-on?) part visually, merely a cameo appearance? Instead, we are treated to the dubious thrill of discovering whether Thomson's play is indeed a success, and an anti-climactic ending that is as disappointingly baffling as much else in this bewildering movie.

At the risk of sounding harsh, Birdman was 1 hour 54 minutes of my life wasted – as a result of which my advice to others would be to watch a clip containing the 5 minutes or so in which Birdman himself appears and forget the rest of what came across to me as predominantly pretentious nonsense. How it ever won Best Picture at the Oscars I just don't know, especially when it was up against such infinitely more deserving nominees in my opinion as The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Having said that, everyone's tastes are different – just because Birdman did nothing for me, that's not to say that you wouldn't like it. So why not find out for yourself by clicking here to watch a mercifully drumming-free Birdman trailer on YouTube? Who knows, it may be the very movie that you've waited your entire life for. Then again…

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!