Red Dragon

A figure apparently more loved than feared – if the sheer enormity of his popularity is any indication – Dr. Hannibal Lecter wouldn’t seriously cut it in any list of the scariest ten (or 20) movie maniacs of all time, but Sir Hopkins’ ever-reliable hamming it up ensures that he’s rarely dull company, and despite the doctor’s slightly reduced role, this third instalment generally represents a near-return to Silence of the Lambs’ quality after the uneven Hannibal.

Red Dragon, though the third film, was the first book in the Hannibal series and has already been made into an excellent film - Michael Mann’s Manhunter, of which this is a remake in all but name. Lecter himself spends its duration entirely confined while dispensing takes-one-to-know-one advice to Ed Norton’s FBI agent, who is investigating a sequence of unbelievably ghoulish slaughterings believed to be the work of a serial killer, his own crimes a morbid tribute to the master.

Norton is predictably excellent, while the frequently typecast Ray Fiennes is hugely impressive in an unforgettable performance of monosyllabic menace. Similarly, Harvey Keitel was never likely to let the side down, and in a film replete with disturbing images and shock effects, few images are more disturbing or shocking than that of a blind Emily Watson giving a maniac a blowjob.

Despite occasional comic relief – some of it annoyingly ill-suited to the foreboding atmosphere – this is a pretty hair-raising assault on the senses, and fun with it.