The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is Responsible For One of My Least Favorite Film Trends

Reader, if you’ll allow me to indulge myself, I’d like to begin and end with an anecdote for this piece.

Many years ago, back when I still shopped at 2nd & Charles, I noticed some intriguing signage as I was browsing their shelves: If I bought two used horror films, I could get a third for free. I accepted the challenge and began searching. It didn’t take long before I’d found three blu-rays I wanted to add to my collection: Let the Right One In, Black Swan, and the Grindhouse double-feature set (Planet Terror and Death Proof).

But when I approached the register, I was dismayed to learn that not one but two of my selections didn’t count for the horror movie sale. Let the Right One In was, unsurprisingly, categorized by the correct genre. But Grindhouse was categorized as action/adventure. Even more infuriating to me was the fact that Black Swan was categorized as a drama. I put the discs back and cursed their name.

My frustration with 2nd & Charles speaks to the root of the problem here: Most movies are not just one thing.¹

Sure, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino filled their Grindhouse features with plenty of action and adventure. But both films are also brimming with horror tropes and rooted in horror mythology. And of course Black Swan is a drama; in the classical sense, any story with a plot could be categorized as a drama. But if you really look closely at the content of the film—particularly what Aronofsky does in the finale—I think it’s hard to argue against psychological horror as the film’s predominant genre.²

So many prestigious horror films are afraid to lean into this genre label, disguising themselves as dark, gritty dramas instead. And I believe this problem began with The Silence of the Lambs.³

Two things must be said in the film’s defense. For one, it’s a masterpiece. Also, Jonathan Demme didn’t seem like the kind of filmmaker that cared about genre labels. He’d done all kinds of films up until that point, and he spent most of the 80s making comedies and concert films. The Silence of the Lambs represented an enticing challenge that would allow him to tread some new territory.

Whatever his goals were for the film, I can’t imagine winning Academy Awards was high on the list. Demme had directed a handful of actors into Oscar nominations—Dean Stockwell in Married to the Mob, Christine Lahti in Swing Shift, and both Jason Robards and Mary Steenburgen in Melvin and Howard, the latter winning the award—but up until this point, he’d only been nominated himself by the Independent Spirit Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle, and interestingly enough, the Grammys.⁴

To break through with an adaptation of a pulpy novel sequel about a serial killer and a cannibal, though? Surely that kind of material wouldn’t yield such results, right?⁵

As we know, Orion Pictures had other ideas, and they ran one hell of a promotional campaign for the film. It grossed more than $270 million worldwide against a modest $19 million budget, and it went on to earn seven Academy Award nominations, sweeping the top five awards—a feat that’s only been done thrice and hasn’t been done since.⁶ It’s one of the best success stories for any mid-major movie studio.

If you ask me, I think The Silence of the Lambs is a little bit of everything; the narrative arc shared by Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling might be a thriller or a police procedural (with a cannibal), but everything involving Buffalo Bill is a horror movie. More importantly, the film’s huge box office and awards season success set the tone for modern horror films to disguise themselves as dramas in order to sneak into the Oscar conversation—films like Black Swan.⁷

But much like I can’t blame Garth Brooks too much for every terrible pop country singer of the 21st century, I can’t really blame The Silence of the Lambs here. It certainly exists in a gray area. And I’ll always remember a story that one of my Louisville professors told us at the beginning of a film class focused on, you guessed it, film genres.

Dr. Williams had gone to Wild & Woolly Video, Louisville’s premiere video store, to rent The Silence of the Lambs.⁸ He looked in the drama section, but he didn’t see it. He browsed the horror section, but he didn’t see it there either. He checked mystery, thriller, crime, everything he could think of, and he still couldn’t find it. Eventually, he went to the front desk and asked an employee: “Do you have The Silence of the Lambs? I looked everywhere for it.”

“Oh,” they said. “That’s in the cannibals section.”

The Silence of the Lambs is now streaming Max, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

1. I wrote them a strongly worded email explaining this and letting them know that their horror movie sale was bogus. They did not respond.

2. For further evidence that I’m right about Black Swan being a horror movie, you can see it for free as part of a double bill with Suspiria at Hauntsville, Alabama, a brand new horror film festival in the Rocket City!

3. The argument could be made that this trend began a year earlier with Misery. But that was really just Kathy Bates, who received the film’s only Oscar nomination (which she won). Silence of the Lambs was a whole ‘nother animal.

4. He won that NYFCC award too. I bet they felt vindicated when he went on to become a legend. Also, my editor John wanted me to clarify that the Grammy nomination was Best Long Form Music Video for Artists United Against Apartheid, a protest group led by legendary E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt.

5. Especially, as John points out, after Manhunter (a great film made by a great director!) was a box office flop, only grossing about half its budget.

6. Something overlooked about the Silence of the Lambs Oscar sweep: The film was nominated in the same five categories at the Golden Globes, but only Jodie Foster won. More evidence that the Golden Globes have always been wack.

7. I used Toni Collette’s Oscar snub for Hereditary as an excuse to write at length about this trend for Modern Horrors, and it’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve written for them. It’s almost five years old now, but it’s still relevant!

8. Wild & Woolly Video was an ice cream shop last time I checked. We are dust, and to dust we shall return.