But horror, say the theorists, will always be popular because it's cathartic. Age film critic Adrian Martin says Hannibal is a classical horror film that reworks the Dracula myth, creating an ambiguous relationship between good and evil in the process. Early on, the film's heroine, FBI agent Clarice Starling, played by Julianne Moore, is shown sleeping - a reference, according to Martin, to the vampire classic Nosferatu, in which the sleeping woman desires a union of mind with the Dracula figure. These mythical monsters both attract and repel, unleashing the desires we are forced to repress in our everyday lives, Martin said. But the monster mutates with the passage of time and contemporary preoccupations.
Serial killing is the trendy horror of our time.
And so we have our celebrity serial killer on celluloid. The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.