If you want to find an example of a truly
terrifying villain you need look no further than Hannibal Lecter in the "Silence of the Lambs"
The director does a wonderful job of making this character terrifying
And he does it in a very interesting way
He introduces the character before he first appears on the screen. Now this might sound counter-intuitive
but he achieves this in two ways; one of which is in dialogue before we first meet him, such as this line when the
Asylum warden is talking about the kind of man he is.
"Oh, he's a monster.
Pure psychopath.
So rare to capture one alive.
From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset"
Now, despite this lines bluntness in its purpose, it does a wonderful job at building the viewers' expectations.
It tells us straight up that Hannibal is the most depraved and psychotic man in the asylum
Now there are many lines in these opening scenes that serve a similar purpose.
The purpose of building up an image of Hannibal in the viewers' minds, and all of this buildup pays off in the next scene:
Now right here the director does something very interesting
As Clarice is walking along the corridor up to Hannibal cell he uses the camera to reinforce the information
We had learned previously. As she walked along the corridor
There are three inmates she sees before Hannibal. The first is a little creepy
Where he smiles at her and says hello. The next inmate seems even more dysfunctional as he just sits there and stares blankly
Barely reacting to her presence. The third is by far the most insane
He is jittery and leaping around his cell, almost like an ape.
This is brilliant because it establishes that as the cells go along the inmates are growing more and more
insane. We know that the man in the end cell he is not just bad
He's not just insane
He is the paragon of insanity, the absolute worst human being you could ever hope to
possibly imagine. And judging by the prior inmates where he is ape like
and whispers how he can smell a not so family-friendly area of the protagonist body we expect Hannibal to be some kind of
Feral beast ready to pounce. Now all of these expectations set in mind
Here is the next shot
"Morning."
He is standing straight in a welded cell and compared to the prior inmates, he shows no
obvious symptoms of insanity. This is terrifying because it totally shatters the viewers' expectations
We have been told he is a most depraved
Individual, yet he looks so civil and like anyone you might see on the streets except
there's something just a little bit off about him. What follows from this point on between the two characters is not so much a
conversation it's more a battle for power over the other, and I think this line right here
marks the very start of that battle
"Closer please.
Closer."
In this line of dialogue, Hannibal makes a demand that she brings her ID badge closer and she abides.
Even though this is a token action that on the surface seems like something quite harmless, it helps to lure us as an audience
Into a feeling of insecurity as we feel right from the start that Hannibal is successfully
manipulating the protagonists: He makes a demand,
she follows it. Hannibal has an amount of power over her and it makes us uneasy
When you look at a great example of dialogue in fiction there is almost always a conflict between the two
characters where one has a different opinion to the other or one wants something that the other doesn't want
This is a pretty basic concept
But part of the reason why this scene in Silence of the Lambs is so gripping and has such compelling
dialogue is because it is full of that conflict
Clarice wants Hannibal to help her with an investigation
Hannibal doesn't want to, and I think to the untrained eye
It might be a little confusing as to why Hannibal is so
terrifying in this scene because he is behind a thick glass
And he cannot physically hurt her so he shouldn't be terrifying because he has no power
So the reason he is scary must be because of something else
Right?
The problem is that is a surface level observation and the more we look at it the more
we realize that actually the truth is the exact opposite.
Now this might sound a little nonsensical seeing as he is in a cage
But Clarice came to him wanting one thing: For his help in catching a murderer in this respect
she is quite vulnerable because she could very easily fail and not achieve her goals.
It would require almost no effort from Hannibal's part to totally shatter her ambitions.
The outcome of this scene whether she gets help or not is entirely in his hands.
This right here the powerlessness of the protagonist is why Hannibal Lecter is such a
terrifying villain. The cinematography also does a wonderful job at helping to reinforce the two characters' power.
Near the start of the conversation she sits down
and he is stood up this makes her physically lower than him which helps to convey how non literally
he is above her in a sense of power.
You can see this in the shots where he looks down at the camera while she looks up instead and in a later scene where
he finally surrenders his power and agrees to help her she goes from sitting down on the floor to standing up so they are both seeing eye-to-eye.
Levels are a fairly basic dramatic technique, but when used properly they can be quite provocative
Also when you look at the framing of the characters there are something quite interesting going on. Hannibal's face takes up the whole screen
While with her, her face takes up only half. This helps make Clarice feel small and again with no power.
The negative space around the characters
is directly proportional to the amount of power that character has
"Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims"
"I didn't"
"No"
"No. You ate yours"
As you can see once she makes this statement,
that catches him off-guard
And her face in the shot when she does it is in the center and is much larger than in the prior
which indicates how she has reclaimed some of her lost power.
Also,
when she delivers the line, he breaks off his eye
contact with her that he had maintained constantly throughout the entire scene in his response to his loss of power
So how could we use this example to address how you can terrify your audience?
Well, it's all to do with power.
It is no coincidence that in horror films the protagonist is often someone with low
competence, for example how in "It" the characters at risk are a group of children or how in "Alien" the characters are a bunch of
pilots and mechanics who can barely defend themselves. Now "Aliens" was a great film, however
it was less horrifying than "Alien"
And I think understanding the reason why can help you to learn an important lesson in how to terrify your audience
because "Aliens" follows a group of Marines
who when it comes down to defending themselves are much more competent than the cast of
"Alien". The characters in "Aliens" have the ability to kill the monsters. The characters in "Alien", don't.
So what does this mean if you want your audience to feel
terrified? It is all to do with which character has the power.
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The Closer Look.
"You know I can't make that promise."
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