Movie Diary

Oct. 23, 2005 -- Silence of the Lambs

I know, you probably can't believe it, but I haven't seen it before now.  Yes, this is my first time seeing this movie.  In the Halloween spirit, Brandon and I went running all over town, using the back roads to find a movie to rent, but just ended up stealing money out of the poor boom operator's pocket and downloading Silence of the Lambs instead. 

I'd caught little bits and pieces of the movie before, like the scene between Clarice and Hannibal in the square cage or them finding the chrysalis in the girl's throat.  Seeing it all come together though, was really cool.  Somehow it was a little different than I thought it was going to be, but that always happens with movies that are always talked about but you haven't seen yet. 

The psychology of it all was disturbingly fascinating, though.  I've always liked those sort of things (hence my guilty pleasure of watching CSI whenever I can... only the original, don't judge!).  And even though I wasn't especially scared during the movie, after we turned it off and Brandon left, the room was all dark and I was kind of creeped out.  I think that's the mark of a good horror movie, when it can get inside your head like that. 

Also, it gave me something to think about in terms of the horror movie stuff we've been thinking of for a while now.  'For a while' being like... 2 days.  Heh.  Anyway, I think it's interesting that the scariest thing in the movie is the human mind.  I don't know if it's the rule or an exception in the trend of creating slasher movies in response to a growing technology, but it is interesting to note that it's one of the most popular scary/thriller movies of the past two decades.  In fact, I think that with horror movies in general, the most scary things have some element of humanity in them.  Zombies- former humans.  Same thing with ghosts.  Mass murderers- humans with a psychological flaw.  I can't think of any good horror movies without a villain that's still, in some way, human.  If you can think of one, tell me (Note: by the time I was finished updating, Brandon had already sneakily found this page and discussed it with me.  You should all be so dedicated).  For some reason, I've come to be really intrigued by the whole horror movie thing.  And perfect timing too, since Halloween's just around the corner.