The Silence of the Lambs is a cinematic classic and a great movie to watch this time of the year. Whether or not it's a true horror film is an entirely different story, and one I've wrestled with after having recently viewed it. There might have been a point where this movie meshed well with horror offerings, but in this day and age, I think it's time to recategorize it.
To be clear, I'm not saying this is a bad movie or that it isn't disturbing. However, if you look up The Silence of the Lambs's genre, it's listed as psychological horror, and we even have it on our top horror movies with ratings over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. I disagree after watching it this Halloween season, and I think it's time we tighten it up and say that in the year 2023, The Silence of the Lambs is not a horror movie.
The Actual Gore In The Silence Of The Lambs Is Scant, And Pretty Mild By Today's Standards
There once was a point where gore was something that the best horror movies had a stranglehold on, but in more recent decades, cable television has caught up. The Walking Dead really pushed the boundaries of just how graphic a television show could get, but it'd be ridiculous of me to suggest that every show takes things to that level.
With that being said, I would argue the standard crime procedural takes violence to the level that The Silence Of The Lambs does. I've seen organs hanging out of bodies in NCIS, and Criminal Minds had more than a few scenes that made my stomach turn during its run. Both of those shows aired on network television, and I think it's fair to say they're about on par with what we see in The Silence of the Lambs.
The 1990 movie doesn't revolve around gore, of course, and there's not a ton of it. The main bits would be Buffalo Bill's skin suit, the flayed guard Hannibal Lecter killed, and the face he peeled off and wore in his escape. That final part is so tame by today's standards that The Office used it as a funny bit involving a CPR dummy. If the argument for classification is gore, we can't call it a horror movie by those standards.
The Story Primarily Clarice Hunting For A Killer Who She Doesn't Meet Until Towards The End
Horror movies have their iconic Final Girl and killer combos, and it needs to be said that Clarice and Buffalo Bill are not the Laurie Strode and Michael Myers combo akin to usual horror offerings. There's no real rivalry or connection between Silence and the Lambs's main killer and Clarice, and they don't really meet until the end of the movie.
Bill tries to get ahold of her in the admittedly creepy night vision goggles scene, but she pumps him full of bullets, and that's more or less the end of Buffalo Bill. There's no grand monologue, capture or standoff. She enters the house, and the whole thing is over relatively quickly once he's backed into a corner and has to face someone who isn't stuck in a hole.
Buffalo Bill is a scary figure, but he doesn't get the level of screen time a typical horror villain should. Instead, The Silence of the Lambs focuses more on Clarice's work in the FBI and the various stages of the investigation that involve attempting to use Hannibal Lecter to help figure out Buffalo Bill's whereabouts.
I don't fault the movie for leaning into the process in which the FBI tracks serial killers. It's a fascinating process, and a big reason why I'm still hoping I'll be able to binge Season 3 of Mindhunter with my Netflix subscription at some point. At the same time, there are points where this movie feels like a police procedural, hence why I believe that by 2023 standards, The Silence of the Lambs is not a horror film.
The Scariest Thing About The Movie Is The Poster
When I was a child, I thought The Silence of the Lambs was one of the scariest movies of all time. I hadn't actually seen it at that point, but there was something terrifying about the image of a pale Jodie Foster with her mouth covered by a colorful moth with an evil face on it. When I saw that on a VHS cover, I was just sure this movie would give me nightmares.
In reality, the movie is pretty tame if you're an adult. Sure, Hannibal Lecter talks about some pretty creepy stuff, and the fact there are serial killers out in the world who could operate like Buffalo Bill is chilling, but these aren't the types of things that keep me awake at night.
If it did, I wouldn't watch shows like NCIS or most other crime dramas that are on television right now. I know I keep beating a dead horse with this, but this movie is not scary by modern standards, especially with what is out there. I would wager outside of one inappropriate sexual act shown during the first encounter, this movie could run largely uncut on television on a number of networks.
This is not a knock against The Silence of the Lambs, of course, as it's an incredible movie. It won five Oscars at the 64th Academy Awards ceremony, and it's deserving of each and every one of them, especially the Best Actor and Actress wins from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. However, when people are still trying to call it the "first horror movie to win Best Picture," I just have to shake my head. All that is doing is robbing some future quality horror movie of an honor it may deserve more at the end of the day, so let's be real with ourselves. This movie is already a classic and has that Academy Award prestige under its belt. Do we still need to prop it up as a faux horror movie in 2023? I don't think so.
If you're looking to stream The Silence of the Lambs, it can currently be watched with a Max subscription. Readers can ultimately decide for themselves what they think of the movie and whether or not they agree that it's time to stop pretending it's a horror movie.
