The Silence of the Lambs - How’d I Miss This?
There are a lot of movies out there, but seeing some of them way after their release makes me wonder, “How’d I miss this?”
Believe it or not, I have not seen every movie. In fact, for someone who loves movies as much as I do, there are a number of mega classics that I have not seen. Singing In The Rain? Haven’t seen it. Apocalypse Now? Nope. Smallfoot? You get the idea. I do, however, remember that Zendaya is, in fact, Meechee.
Anyway.
The Silence of the Lambs, the 1991 horror/thriller that not-so-subtly lit the fuse of the cultural bomb that was our collective obsession with serial killers, is also in that category. I know. Listen, just… I know. I KNOW. This film, as any of the three film-loving brunettes I frequent the movies with would say, is an outage.
There are any number of reasons for this. First off, I don’t watch many horror-adjacent movies (while there’s plenty of scary and disturbing stuff that happens in this movie, I really wouldn’t classify it as proper horror). Secondly, movies from the early ‘90s in general don’t sit heavily on my mind (with the exception of maybe Edward Scissorhands and Goodfellas). And third… well, it’s the poster.
I don’t remember who exactly – maybe it was a childhood babysitter or a friend’s parent who was clearly going through something at the time if this was the case – but someone in my childhood had this terrifying poster framed on the wall in their home. Similarly, I remember seeing it at the video store every single time I went to get Star Wars or The Hobbit for the 37th time, quietly staring back at me amongst all the other VHSs.
As a kid, I just remember seeing that image and being so confused, but undoubtedly afraid. Who was this woman? Was she alive? And why was a fucking moth covering her mouth? Or was the moth her mouth? Was it all a metaphor? Also, I do not like fluttery flying insects in general, so this was all very unsettling. For those who have seen me around bees, well, you get it.
At the time, I knew nothing about the story, plot, characters, or impact of the film, and yet I knew to be afraid. And even though I didn’t see The Silence of the Lambs until my 37th year on this planet, it’s almost unbelievable to me that there was a time in my life when I was yet to consume this movie even if I’d never actually seen it.
With the exception of maybe The Empire Strikes Back, Pulp Fiction, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or potentially The Big Lebowski, it’s hard to think of another movie that’s become so utterly absorbed by pop culture. Even if you (or me until recently) have never seen The Silence of the Lambs, you know this movie. You know “Hello Clarice” and Hannibal Lecter’s facemask and you know that there’s something about a moth. When I mentioned having just seen this movie for the first time to my parents, my mother immediately quoted the iconic “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
This movie made over $250 million when it was released in 1991 and is one of only three films to ever sweep the big five at the Oscars (best picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay). It completely changed Anthony Hopkins’ life and turned him into a bonafide star who most definitely owns an entire mountain in Malibu (where he plays the piano with his cat that is 100% named sir something). Yet, what I didn’t realize about The Silence of the Lambs – again, having never seen it until a few weeks ago – is how completely insane and unhinged it truly is, especially for a film that was a massive commercial and critical success.
Here’s a look at the six 1991 films that grossed over $100 million at the box office:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Robinhood: Prince of Thieves
Home Alone
The Silence of the Lambs
City Slickers
Dances with Wolves
Sidenote: HUGE year for Kevin Costner and movies with colons in the title.
Anyway.
How many of those other films featured a genius cannibal?
How many of those films feature someone doing the tuck dance to the Q Lazzarus song, “Goodbye Horses”? (Yes, we’ll get to him)
And most importantly: How many of those other films feature someone throwing a fresh load at an FBI agent?
I’ll tell you one thing: they definitely wouldn’t have thrown a handful of spunk at Johnny Utah.
Ok, I have to say: there are a lot of upsetting things in the film The Silence of the Lambs. For instance, the morgue scene is very unpleasant. When Lecter escapes and wears someone else’s face to do so? Also, VERY unpleasant. But the moment you realize that one of the fellow insane criminals who lives down the hall from the 45th president of these United States’ favorite people eater is jerking it before tossing a handful of cum at Jodie Foster is one of the truly most fucked up things I’ve ever seen in a movie. Had I not known the plot of The Substance, I would’ve assumed it was a three-hour documentary about director Jonathan Demme’s decision to put this in the movie.
Damn, also a huge year for Daniel Stern. Almost forgot about him.
Anyway.
At this point, there are three specific aspects of The Silence of the Lambs that need to be discussed, which I shall now go through in order of least horrific to most.
Hannibal Lecter’s Escape from… the Baltimore War Museum?
In the world of The Silence of the Lambs, ol’ HB is one of the most feared serial killers on Earth. He has been imprisoned in a specially-designed maximum security mental ward cell for most of a decade. Then, through his own psychological manipulation, he secures a transfer of sorts out of his cell and during the transport, he’s kept in what appears to be an antique WWE cage inside of a fictional war museum in Baltimore. During this time, there are but two guards watching him and he’s able to request a second dinner which then allows him to use a hidden pen part to get out of a pair of handcuffs, killing the guards, and ripping off one of their faces to pose as said guard so that he can be whisked away in an ambulance where he then rides off into the unknown. What in the absolute fuck were these people thinking?
Ted Levine as Jame Gumm as Buffalo Bill
Ted Levine has had a remarkable acting career. He’s appeared in Heat, Wild Wild West, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Shutter Island, almost every episode of USA: Characters Welcome’s Monk, and Flubber. And yet, once you experience him as Buffalo Bill aka Jame Gumm (yes, that’s Jame, not James and you better not forget it or else you might end up at the bottom of the well), you can never unsee the performance, which is genuinely remarkable. Levine possesses that haunting dirtbag quality that makes him extraordinarily believable as a cop (Heat) or serial killer/skin seamstress (this). Sidenote - Waingro, also of Heat (and Everybody’s in LA) fame, bears a striking resemblance to Buffalo Bill – an observation that I am simply shocked hasn’t been discussed more on the internet or on r/sickomoviestuff.
Anyway, between his request for it to “put lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose,” the obsession with a toy poodle, and one of the most haunting movie scenes maybe ever – featuring night vision goggles that if it were made today would somehow be way more realistic, but way less upsetting – Jame Gumm is one of the most disturbed movie characters ever and yet, he’s only the second most disturbing character in the one movie he features in. Also, the acting in the scene between Levine and Foster when he pretends to look for the card of the son of the former owner of his house (who is actually rotting in a bathtub in his basement) is genuinely incredible and makes me wish that we’d gotten more scenes of Buffalo Bill pretending to be a normal person just to watch Levine absolutely cook.
The Fucking Moths, Man
As I was watching The Silence of the Lambs, two thoughts continued to weigh on my mind.
First off, is this one of those movies with an interesting title that goes completely unexplained? Spoiler: it is not, there’s a whole scene dedicated to explaining exactly what it means, which had me doing the Leo point and whistle almost immediately.
And second, when are we going to learn about the whole moth thing? And then, during the autopsy of one of Buffalo Bills previous victims, the homie Clarice notices something lodged in the victim’s throat and that something is a large moth’s cocoon, which… might just be the most horrific detail in this film. I do not like small things that flutter in the air and when Demme cuts from that morgue scene straight to Buffalo Bill’s at-home lepidopterarium (yeah, look it up), my skin doth did crawl. My 10-year-old brain returned ever so quickly as one of my great movie mysteries was answered and I struggled to think of anything more horrifying than having a giant moth’s cocoon stuck down my throat. Well, you know, minus being skinned by a serial killer. Or maybe having Miggs’ hot load tossed at my face.
—
If you haven’t seen The Silence of the Lambs, I’d recommend watching it as soon as humanly possible. And if you have, I’d highly recommend listening to the live Rewatchables episode about it, which was exactly why I finally watched it in the first place. If you listen close, you can even hear me yell “Best in Show” when Bill Simmons asks if The Silence of the Lambs was apex mountain for poodles in movies. Never forget Rhapsody in White/Butch. N-e-v-e-r.
