Whats So Appealing About Hannibal?
Fava beans, Chianti … and human flesh. That was Hannibal Lecter’s idea of a tasty snack a decade ago, and this past weekend movie audiences just couldn’t wait to see the evil doctor serve up his next meal. The reviews for Hannibal certainly weren’t as strong as they were for Lecter’s last outing, The Silence of the Lambs, and everyone has been warned of a certain stomach-turning final scene. Nevertheless, Hannibal is now the most successful R-rated release and the third strongest weekend opener in movie history. In its first three days, Hannibal grossed $58 million in the United States and Canada. Even the film’s producer Dino De Laurentiis seemed amazed by audiences’ persistent fascination with the macabre. “I must confess I expected it to be big, but not this big,” he told Reuters news service from Berlin, where the film premiered. So what draws millions of people to voluntarily witness scenes of gratuitous violence, gore, and terror? ‘Fascinated by the Bogeyman’ Sir Anthony Hopkins,
