In a moment of madness before Christmas, shopping complete I get the unusual urge to watch all or most of the old films that I have on video, to take away the boredom of waiting for Santa (child at heart)

The other night it was Jaws tonight it is The Silence of the Lambs.

I absolutely adore films that make you think about it, but at the same time have you on the edge of your seat.

The first real horror film I saw was the exorcist (put aside Frankenstein and Dracula) they are just to far fetched. But silence of the lambs really made me think.

I know I am talking about a vast time span in the films that I watch, but it just goes to show which ones stuck in my mind.

The main cast in Silence of the lambs was
Jodie Foster………………………...Clarice Starling
Anthony Hopkins………………..Dr Hannibal Lecter
Scott Glenn………………………….Jack Crawford
Ted Levine…………………………..Jame Gumb
Anthony Heald……………………..Dr Frederick Chilton
Brooke Anne Smith……………..Catherine Martin
Charles Napier……………………..Sergeant Boyle
Diane Baker………………………….Senator Ruth Martin
Jonathan Demme directed this 1991 unsettling film.

There is another part to this film called Hannibal (which is crap, excuse the language, one of the main actors (Jodie foster) is replaced and Dr Lecter seems to have lost his air of mischievous psychological teasing)

Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is running through the woods doing her practise as a trainee. When Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) her senior officer calls her up to his headquarters.

Crawford tells Starling about a murderer who removes parts of the skin from his dead victims.

Crawford tells Starling that there is someone who could help them, someone who knows only to well about how the killer mind works after all he is a brilliant Dr. A Dr who is now serving his time in jail for eating his patients.

Crawford sends Starling to the jail that houses Dr lecter,

Before Starling enters the cells she is warned about going to near the glass or passing anything through the hatch.

As she nears the cell holding Dr Hannibal Lecter, she can see him just standing there watching her which makes her on edge.

He breaks the tension by asking her if she is from the FBI, she immediately tells him that she is a trainee.

Dr Lecter then asks Starling why they call the murderer Buffalo Bill, Starling tells him it is because he skins his victims.

Dr Lecter then starts on Starling making fun of her in his own perverted way. The way she talks, her cheap shoes, just one generation away from poor white trash.

Starling tells him he sees a lot, but is he man enough to look at himself. He retorts by telling her about how he ate someone’s liver with some fava beans and a nice Chi-an-ti. Making a horrible slurping sound when he’s finished his piece. He then tells her to leave.

Starling goes and as she is heading up the corridor another inmate throws semen at her. Dr Lecter calls to her and she runs back to him.

After that they seem to hit it off in an odd sort of way.

Dr Lecter telling her in cryptic form about Buffalo Bill and her telling Dr Lecter about herself.
Dr Lecter tells her about a patient named Mofet, which is a cryptic clue.

Of course as in all or most films Starling works it out and finds Dr. lecters old storage area, which has been rented out to him for ten years under the name Mofet.

Amongst other things stored in the storage area is an old car, after opening the car door she soon finds a clue to her dilemma. It was a male head that was made up to be female and put into a specimen jar.

Starling goes back to see Dr. Lecter and all of the time that she is prying him for information, he is doing the same to her. He also tells her that he would like a room with a view.

In the bargaining of their conversation, from what Dr. Lecter has said, Starling realises that Dr. Lecter knows who Buffalo bill is.

Whilst all of this is going on a young girl called Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) Senator Ruth Martins (Diane Baker) daughter, drives up to her apartment, she gets out of the car and notices a man with a plaster cast on his arm having great difficulty lifting a settee into his van. She helps him lift it into the van then he asks her a weird question about her dress size just before knocking unconscious.

Starling is ordered to go to with Crawford, because they have found a girls body it had been in the water for about a week. stripped naked with her back skinned.

Starling is taken to the morgue to see the dead girl and to give a report and take photographs. As one of the instant pictures is developing Starling notices something in the girl’s throat. It was some kind of cocoon from an insect.

Starling goes to see an entomologists to see if he could identify the insect. After cutting it open and examining it he reveals to her that it is a Death’s-head moth only found in Asia and somebody would have had to rear it and keep it in ideal conditions for it to survive over there.

Meanwhile fifteen feet down a hole in a dark cellar Catherine is petrified and desperate.

Starling returns to go and see Dr Lecter asking him for more information that might lead her to the serial killer known as Buffalo Bill and save the life of the senators daughter. She told him if he helped her he would be transferred to another prison with a room with a view. Dr Lecter was not impressed as the island where he was to be transferred to was an Animal Disease Research Centre.

Dr lecter said he would help her though, if she told him all about her past. Her fears and her secrets.

Starling had no option other than to agree, the film then goes into starlings childhood, the death of her Father and her having to go and live on a relatives ranch a relative that dealt with sheep, she tried to save one lamb from slaughter, which led to her running away.

Dr Lecter then gives Starling some information about buffalo bill, how buffalo bill thinks he is trans-sexual, and how he may have gone to medical centres and asked for a sex change and been turned down.

We return to the cellar where Buffalo Bill is leaning over the edge of the pit, holding his poodle that is called Precious in his arms.

Catherine tells him that her family will pay any amount of money if he releases her, but all buffalo bill does is lower a bucket down to her that has in it a bottle of oil. He tells her to rub the oil onto her skin.

Dr. Lecter is strapped and straitjacketed onto a trolley. He arrives by plane at Memphis International Airport to meet with the senator.

Dr lecter tells her that Buffalo bills real name is Louis Friend and then goes on and asks her if she breast fed her daughter. After the initial shock of the Question The Senator said Yes, I did.
Dr Lecter then said Toughened your nipples, didn't it? If you amputate a man's leg, he can still feel it tickling. When your little girl's on the slab, where will it tickle you?

The Senator ordered that Dr. lecter should be taken back to Baltimore.

As the guards go to wheel him away Dr. Lecter shouts out to the senator Five-foot-ten, strongly built, about 180 pounds. Hair blonde, eyes pale blue. He'd be about thirty-five now. He said he lived in Philadelphia but may have lied. That's all I can remember.

On the fifth floor of a large building, an iron cage has been put up, to hold Dr. Lecter.

Starling goes to visit Dr. Lecter and he gives her more clues to the killer as she tells him more of her life history.

Later on two guards come to give the Dr. his dinner, before they open the cage they have to handcuff him to the bars of the cage, as he gets in position to be handcuffed little did the guards know that Dr. Lecter had stolen a pen earlier on in the film and taken out a metal clip that would enable him to undo the handcuffs.

As the Guards enter the cell Dr. Lecter pounces on one of the guards with the macabre results of his face being eaten, the second is beaten to death with a baton.

From the commotion on the upper floor the officers down below heard it and they turned towards the lifts and noticed that the lift was going down from the fifth to the third floor. They headed and ran for the stairs to the third floor, when they reached the third floor they found the lift empty.

On the fifth floor other officers found the bodies of the two guards. One of them strung up on the cell bars in a Jesus like execution. The other lying on the floor with a bloody face and no sign of Dr.Lecter.

As they approach the Guard on the floor they realise that he is still alive, they call for an ambulance and get him into the lift on a stretcher.
Drips of blood fall upon the white sheet covering the guard, from the hatch in the lift and Officers think that Dr. Lecter is hiding on the roof of the lift.

The lift reaches the ground floor the patient is wheeled to the ambulance and whisked off to hospital.

The hatch in the lift is opened and there lying inside it is a man that the officers believe to be Dr. Lecter. They fire a shot at the body and realise there is no sign of movement.

In the ambulance, the so-called guard removes his oxygen mask and sits up.

Starling goes to the house of one of the victims and is shown around the house she sees a dress-making dummy and goes looking in the wardrobe where she finds a dress which is only half made, the pattern pieces on the dress closely resembles the pattern on the victim who’s back was skinned.

It prompted Starlings imagination and she finally realised that this maniac is making himself a body suit out of women.

As Buffalo Bill Prances around the house almost naked tucking his penis out of sight behind his legs to imitate a female, Catherine who is way down in the hole in the cellar tries to tempt precious the dog to jump down into the hole by holding up a chicken bone which she has fed off.

Starling reaches buffalo Bills house alone and confronts him.

Find out about the moths and where was Dr. Lecter, what happened to Catherine and agent starling.by watching the film.

The acting in this film is absolutely superb. Anthony Hopkins does a supreme job of terrifying you.

This psychological thriller really does intensify your imagination from start to finish.
It didn’t just make you think it made you realise how a human brain can work.
There was in my opinion no special sound effects it was all down to pure professional acting.

Sayings and phrases from the film:-

He's a monster. Pure psychopath. It's so rare to capture one alive

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chi-an-ti.

Quid pro quo, Doctor

What became of your lamb, Clarice

I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.

You can buy Silence of the lambs from about £16 on DVD or £9 video

Merry Christmas all