I remember in the early 90s as a latchkey kid being left alone for 24hrs at my grandma's who had a giant wall of vhs tapes. Going through them I stumbled on Manhunter and people under the stairs, watched them both back to back instantly becoming addicted to horror. Still have the very same vhs tapes in my collection now.
The burning wheelchair scene from Manhunter still scares the hell out of me. The squeaking of the wheels before it turns the corner coming down the ramp, the parking garage guard's reaction, and seeing that corpse on fire coming straight for the camera are all just insane. Edit: Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Red Dragon was pretty great, too.
Exactly. Anthony Hopkins is good, but his Hannibal is far too theatrical. Comes off as more of an old school Bond villain than a realistic serial killer.
The Hannibal of Silence of the Lambs screams "psychopathic slasher movie serial killer". He would never be able to get close to any victim. The Hannibal of Manhunter is much more like an actual serial killer, someone who can appear to be normal and even banal, never letting you know his true nature until it's too late. The menace that he does project when talking to Will Graham is aimed at Will to unnerve and disturb him, but the pleasant, easy charm he uses on the phone is the way he presents himself to the world. Brian Cox did a great job of showing this with very little dialog and little screen time. Hopkins just hams it up from the first moment on screen, coming across like a movie monster instead of the real nightmare of an actual serial killer.
That's what they were going for. The books, show and movie on the otherhand aren't meant to be viewed as our world but adjacent to it. Hannibal isn't supposed to be viewed as realistic, he's a boogeyman man, the perfect predator, not a wolf in sheep's clothing but a dire wolf in sheep's clothes. He's the perfect psycho/sociopath, something that quite literally can not exist, along with having a 100% photographic memory, one of the highest IQ in the world and the senses and strength of an animal beyond man. He's a monster of fiction through and through, nothing that can actually exist.
That's why I prefer Hopkins as he doesn't seem like a serial killer and cannibal. I always felt that was the point. To me Lector was Frasier Crane who also happens to like eating people's brains. Cox comes across as a guy I would expect to kill someone and I wouldn't dare be alone in a room with him. Often it is the ones you least suspect.
For a while Manhunter was sometimes listed as Red Dragon in TV schedules, just to make things more confusing. Not sure if home video boxes marked it that way too, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Manhunter is vastly superior to Red Dragon. Style wise, it's brilliant, the acting is good, and both Lector and the red dragon dude are simply better in that film.
What I love about Manhunter’s climax is the choppy editing to account for the budget running out. A long time ago in a RU-vid comment someone said it was like reality was coming apart for Graham and Dollarhyde, not to mention In A Gadda Da Vida’s sinister guitar riff. William Petersen definitely brought an intensity to the role and he definitely seems like a dude that spent time in a mental hospital
Manhunter's cinematography and music is fucking lit 🔥 and William Petersen was on a fucking roll between this and To Live and Die in LA. Viva Michael Mann!
I will say Red Dragon film is my favorite of the bunch. A great redemption for Anthony Hopkins after the goofy Hannibal movie. That being said, Mads Mikkelsen was awesome in the HANNIBAL TV show.
I've been pretty scared of Tom Noonan since the x-files episode, where he played the child killer who cut a heart shape out of little girls night dresses.
11:27 I swore she was alluding to the fact that Brian Cox provided voice work for Manhunt(PS2, Xbox, PC). I really thought that's where this was going lol
The blue print for Red Dragon’s success as an adaptation isn’t because of Manhunter, it’s due to the excellent source material and Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs. Some of the shots in RD are exactly the same as in SotL. Call it an homage or whatever, but Brett Ratner definitely borrowed a lot from Demme lol
Mason Verger from the TV series was incredibly menacing. I remember the actor first coming on screen (recognized him from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"). I thought he was doing a terrible accent until I realized he was taking his cues from the version played by Gary Oldman.
Right when you started to play the scene with inna gadda da vida, my cousin started up an episode of Sanford and Son and I stood confused for a bit because I was like "man this was really similar to the theme from Sanford and Son" lol
I know the movie Hannibal didn't follow the book ending but I'd like to see a final installment where Will Graham (Peterson) has to hunt down Hannibal (Hopkins) with Clairice (Foster) and Jack Crawford (Keitel).. kinda bring the universe full circle
@@rcdune7132 he's too young for this project as is Norton... I guess we could just do a crossover with the Clairice show instead if you want, I'll call Brad
6:28 I just happened to think of the Starski and Hutch movie with Ben Stiller where Will Farrells character is getting arroused by Owen Wilson imitating a dragon.😅
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Manhunter is pretty impressive and it's one of my favorite Michael Mann movies. Even though it has flaws, its considered to be superior to Silence Of The Lambs, as it's the only Hannibal Lecter movie to have a happy ending.
One could argue that Hannibal has a happy ending. Hannibal is free, though he lost a hand, and Clarice is alive and not intensely brainwashed, like the book series.
The music, editing, and lighting of "Manhunter" was very inline with "Miami Vice." Also, it's funny that Tony picked a tiger for his full-body tattoo since William Blake also has a famous poem and illustration Tyger.
The reason Scott Glenn did not return was because he got PTSD from Silence of the Lambs. Not because the shooting of the movie, nor the finished film itself, but because of the preparation he went through for the role.
After Manhunter he was offered a part in Platoon which he turned down because it didn’t pay much and he’d be in the Philippines, turned down Goodfellas, and turned down Heat. Shame, I love Manhunter and he was really badass in To Live And Die In LA
There is no bad adaption 🤯ingly. Being an 80’s kid, Manhunter wins. However, I can watch all of the movies all the way through and be thoroughly entertained! The Tv series I’ve not watched much of but the Mads Mikkelsen is Perfect.
Funny thing about the scene in Manhunter when Will is talking to his son about Hannibal.... He's actually describing Garrett Jacob Hobbs and what he did... Idk why they either just merged the two or just completely messed it up
They're all great but Manhunter eeks out Red Dragon for me. Also Micheal Mann directed the first two pilot eps of Miami Vice . It's pretty much a Mann movie!
Definitely prefer manhunter. It seems like every decision they made more faithful to the source material in Red dragon was really ham-fisted. Like, the whole revelation of how Will Graham figured out what the killer was doing that led him to Hannibal lecter was such an unsubtle performance of what in the book was supposed to be something of a revelation to audience and will himself about how intuitive he is and how eidetic his memory is. Instead it's just a detective going to a psychiatrist for some reason to point out that a killer cut certain organ meats out of a body that you would also find in popular recipes. In the book, it's also unclear whether lector wants to kill graham or just hurt him really really badly for rudeness. And the scene in manhunter when will Graham gradually figures out how Francis dolarhyde is choosing his victims wonderfully builds various pieces of information about what the films show, what the crime scene showed, and how the killer behaved to lead to the conclusion. In red dragon, it was completely flat. Finally, the makers of manhunter knew that they couldn't get an actor to portray the singular character of Francis dolarhyde as written, so they didn't try. They just reconstructed the character to fit the story. In red dragon, they made the wrong call altogether. Put this together with Brian Cox's wonderfully world weary interpretation of Hannibal lecter, and it is definitely the superior version.
I found manhunter quite boring in the 80's as I was reading the books but liked Red Dragon alot and I think Anthony Perkins was brilliant in all these films 👍😊🐾💜 Oops I meant Hopkins 😂😂😂🐾💜
I have a soft spot for Red Dragon, but Manhunter is just so cool. I watched a few episodes of Hannibal and thought it was pretty cool, but I really hated the quirky CSI style forensics team. If they weren't in many scenes, it would have been ok, but they were in a lot. Anyone else have that problem? Am I just an asshole?
At no point did Red Dragon convince me that it took place in the 80's, like it was supposed to. It was so mediocre and forgettable to me, as was Norton's performance, and I usually like him. I thought Manhunter was a lot better directed. As awkward as Hannibal was, it at least had a competent director with a vision, rather than some hack (like Brett Ratner) with no attention to the little details, and bites off of other directors. Never watched the show, and don't intend to, so can't state anything there.
