Best served chilled with a nice Chianti

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2003)

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) **** Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Brooke Smith, Diane Baker (Cameos: Roger Corman, producer Kenneth Utt, singer Chris Isaak) Terrifying masterpiece of modern-day horror and the first film since 1975's "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" to win all 5 major Oscars (Picture, Director: Jonathan Demme, Actress Foster, Actor Hopkins, and Screenplay Adaptation by Ted Tally of the best-seller by Thomas Harris): novice FBI agent Clarice Starling (a stalwart Foster) begins her career in a manhunt for a serial killer known as "Buffalo Bill", a transsexual wanna-be whose grisly crimes leads to her only source of his trail: imprisoned psychiatrist Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Hopkins in one chilling and modulated perf) whose mindgames with the rookie agent has her on her toes and running out of time. Exciting, suspenseful and supremely scary with some truly eye-widening moments of the unexpected. Best line: Lecter at film's end: "I'm having an old friend for dinner."