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+ Best Cannibal Title of the Year + Best Crime Thriller of the Year + Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Psychological Horror of the Year
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| Mads Mikkelsen dressed to the nines wipes his mouth with a fancy cloth as the title character on this poster for the first season of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal |
FBI Special Investigator Will Graham is initially hunting a killer of girls, as he initiates contact to noted psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter for insights, and the good doctor is only too keen to assist him, although he carefully keeps certain details of his life away from Graham ...
Hannibal is a horror/crime TV-series created by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me (2003-04)), based on Thomas Harris' (Black Sunday (1975)) Hannibal Lecter novels, Red Dragon (1981), Hannibal (1999) and Hannibal Rising (2006).
The show establishes its really icky, unnerving tone in its pilot (Aperitif), in which we witness Graham's investigative technique of putting himself in the mind of the killer with closed eyes, imagining that he is doing the horrific killings himself. By the second episode, in which young, red-headed, scrupulous journalist Freddie Lounds (played by the beautiful Lara Jean Chorostecki (X Company (2015-17))) is also introduced, we have already been dealing with two bizarre serial killers, - beside the doctor himself, whose homicidal tendencies and cannibalistic tastes will be known to most viewers beforehand and are mostly teased to us in the show, as in dinner scenes with Special Agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne (Apocalypse Now (1979))), where Lecter serves Crawford suspicious delicacies. Crawford's beautiful wife (Gina Torres (Suits (2011-18)) later starts therapy at Lecter, and the couple are quite moving, when Crawford learns that she has overcome lung cancer without telling him about it.
The show is very dark, and it comes to a dark climax in episode 4 (Oeuf), in which a woman manipulates kidnapped teens into murdering their families! By and by we come to narrow in on the central serial killer of the season, the so-called Chesapeake Ripper, and could he be Eddie Izzard's (Ocean's Thirteen (2007)) incarcerated Dr. Abel Gideon?
Shrinks often have their own shrinks, as we already know, and Lecter's is Gillian Anderson's (Tristram Shandy (2005)) delectable Bedelia Du Maurier, whose doctor-patient confidentiality clause later becomes a point of contention, as Lecter becomes a person of interest in connection to more than one murder case.
Lecter hides from Graham that he is suffering from a brain infection, which causes him to have blackouts. SPOILER In the final episode such a blackout proves disastrous for Graham, as he wakes up coughing an ear up, with blood under his fingernails, getting him locked away in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane!
Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt/Jagten (2012)) first struck me as very Danish as Dr. Lecter, and the pace of the show somewhat rushed. The plot is strange and far detached from any reality audiences will be used to, but it strikes a handsome, nightmarish tone. It takes a while to get into the show's creepy thrills, but I was there by episode 7, especially as the weird triangle of trust between Graham, Lecter and Du Maurier begets suspense. Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy (Our Idiot Brother (2011)), - whose youthfully pretty face actually works against him in a character as heavy and adult as Graham, - and Fishburne all turn in formidable work. Graham's character is constructed carefully and credibly.
The show has a phenomenal grip on digital effects, lighting and photography, which is sublime, always pushing the gross and nauseating plot details to our subconscious examinations. (Cinematography by James Hawkinson (Running Wilde (2010, TV-series)) and Karim Hussain (Ascension (2002)).) It ends on a real high note with a terrific cliffhanger. There hasn't really been a TV-series like it before: Hannibal slow-burns its way assuredly towards goosebumps, nightmares and a strong viewer investment in its horrific plot.
Best episodes:
Episode 8: Fromage - written by Fuller, Jennifer Schuur (Hellcats (2010-11)); directed by Tim Hunter (Glee (2011, TV-series))
A male couple, who are both violent and homicidal, go through the hands of Lecter and Graham, whose mental stability is under pressure. SPOILER Hannibal kills both the men after a wild battle, and hides the fact from Graham.
Episode 9: Trou Normand - written by Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher (2017-19)); directed by Guillermo Navarro (Narcos (2015, TV-series))
A nauseating human totem (!) is discovered, and Lance Henriksen (Hard Target (1995)) plays the psycho culprit. But the episode is more about Graham's instability and a young woman, the daughter of a now defeated monster, whose own sins are buried by Lecter and Graham collectively.
Episode 13: Savoureux - written by Fuller, Lightfoot, Scott Nimerfro (Pushing Daisies (2007-08)); directed by David Slade (Hard Candy (2005))
Graham further incriminates himself, - or someone does it for him?, - in connection to the presumed murder of Abigail Hobbs. He is locked away, while his girlfriend suspects that a physical ailment is in play, and Graham himself gets closer and closer to realizing the true, horrific capabilities of his psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter.
Related posts:
2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]
Hannibal Lecter franchise: Hannibal Rising (2007) - Harris returns famed cannibal in sub-par origins flick
Hannibal (2001) - Grisly highlights in low-yielding Scott sequel
Manhunter (1986) - Perhaps the best criminal profiling picture ever
Mikkelsen and Dancy on the red carpet in a short clip here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV-series
= Uncertain
[Hannibal season 1 was first shown from 4 April - 20 June on NBC and runs 13 episodes of on average 44 minutes, coming to 572 minutes. Fishburne was reportedly paid 175k $ per episode, totaling 2.275 mil. $. Shooting took place from August 2012 - ? in Ontario, including in Toronto. The season's highest rating came on episode 2 (4.38 mil.), but the ratings then slipped, and the lowest rating came on the final episode (1.98 mil. ). The season averaged 2.9 mil. US viewers. It was renewed for season 2 (2014). IMDb's users have rated the film in at #215 on the sites TV Top 250 list, sitting between Mob Psycho 100 (2016) and Community (2009). In 2013 Mikkelsen also starred in Charlie Countryman and Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas; Dancy with voice performances in Poe and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and Fishburne in The Colony, Man of Steel and Khumba. Hannibal season 1 is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Hannibal - season 1?
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