The movie contains various twists and turns and does follow many of the horror conventions. The horror conventions it does follow are things such as dark and atmospheric sets, where the tension is mounted up onto the audience, however a comical thing in the film, breaks the tension down to make the movie more watch able, this is found in several movies I have studied such as scream and the shining. The movie also follows conventions such as good triumphs over evil and also the fact that the main characters are quite emotionally inept because of previous incidents and affairs that have affected them throughout their lives. In this movie however Clarice is aided by Hannibal Lector, another killer to catch Buffalo Bill who is the “bad guy” of the movie, this shows that Hannibal Lector actually does have a good side to him. At the end of the movie it is clear that Hannibal Lector is going to go after the doctor that mistreated him so badly, this shows that he doesn’t intend to harm average innocent people, but just to get revenge, this indicated more to a sequel of silence of the lambs, which is Hannibal.
Stereotypes in the movie are illustrated, however very subtly, such as the police men, when they go to a small town, the police men are very old fashioned, and believe women should stay in the home etc; this is actually a stereotype of how people think and act over in the real state in America. This is illustrated by when Clarice tells all the police officers to go home because their help is not needed at the scene, the police men give Clarice a dirty look as if “who is she to tell us”, however the superiority of the FBI over a small town’s police prevails.
The scenery moves around from woodland areas, which is very common in horror movies, this is because it is hard to see in woodland areas, and running around is very limited, this brings a fear of the unknown to the audience, this is the same with the movie going pitch black, and the killer uses his night vision goggles, because Clarice is having a fear of the unknown, this is portrayed onto the audience, and then feel the fear with her.
The lighting is another common horror convention, artificial light is used in dark rooms and sets and made out as if an object is producing all the light, such as Clarice using a torch inside the storage room, however a torch could not produce that much light to light up most of the room, so artificial light is used so the audience can actually see inside the room.
I think that the movie was more disturbing than frightening because the action isn’t very intense and the fear in the movie is far too spaced out, a movie with more intense action which is closer together would be more frightening. I also think that because the characters have guns against the killer/s it makes the movie less frightening because there’s a distance between them and the evil, whereas in something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre the group of teens have no guns, and the killer has to get close to use the Chainsaw on them, this is much more frightening because you know tension will be built.
