Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
The entertainment media/pop-culture industry was making money off serial killers wayyy before THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (see Ripper, Jack the...), but the monster success of Jonathan Demme's 1991 thriller was taken by tastemakers to be something of a cultural watershed. Released in a spring movie-off season, the slick, satisfying, sinister picture was a box-office smash that won the Best Picture Oscar, making its murderous antihero Hannibal Lecter a much-imitated screen icon. And it gave film-critic-turned-right-wing-talk-show-host Michael Medved (hey, how do I get on board that gravy train? I need money too) exhibit A for his culture-wars book Hollywood vs. America.
