The Movies
A supporting character in Red Dragon, the first book of Thomas Harris' series of best-selling novels, cannibalistic, psychopathic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter has since become one of Hollywood's great screen villains, charismatically straddling drama and horror in a total of five films. MGM's The Hannibal Lecter Collection consists of Manhunter (1986), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Hannibal (2001), but not Red Dragon (2002) or the God-awful Hannibal Rising prequel from 2007.
In the first film, renamed Manhunter to better emphasize the journey of central character Will Graham (William Petersen), director Michael Mann brought his TV cop drama experience (Miami Vice) and the frank cinematic style he displayed in 1981's Thief, crafting a story that focused on the procedures of criminal investigation and on Graham's knack for getting inside a killer's head, which is a very dark, very difficult place to be. He's compelled out of retirement to catch "The Tooth Fairy" murderer (Tom Noonan), with the help of the man he captured years earlier, Hannibal Lecktor (sic). Lecktor is played here by the gifted Brian Cox (X2), and even when I first saw this movie back in the '80s I thought he was wickedly brilliant.
Multiple Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs is the best-known tale of Hannibal (now "Lecter," now played by Anthony Hopkins), again helping an FBI agent (Jodie Foster) track down a new serial killer, Buffalo Bill, from behind bars... and a thick layer of shatterproof glass, for everyone's protection. There are twists and surprises I won't spoil here, but the film is clearly the strongest of the three.
The events in Lambs lead to Hannibal, set and shot a decade later. Hannibal's plot revolves around an elaborate scheme by the serial killer's sole surviving victim to seek revenge on the fugitive psychopath. Moving Lecter to the forefront and essentially sidelining Agent Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Foster) resulted in a less-interesting exploitation of Silence's enduring appeal, albeit one that made a killing at the box office.
The Picture
Previously available on DVD, this branded collection represents the official Blu-ray debuts of both Manhunter and Hannibal. Manhunter is the only film here shot at 2.35:1, and in fact the only one encoded as AVC: Both The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal are presented here in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, encoded in the MPEG-2 format, possibly utilizing old DVD video masters. While Manhunter boasts strong colors and the occasional lovely shot, certainly a notch above DVD, blacks are severe and detail is lacking, much likely lost in the compression, which can also bring hard ringing. Grain and noise are often high.
The Sound
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is the format of choice for all three titles. Manhunter has a very natural quality to its sound, maintaining a lot of background noise captured live on set. This being an older track, it tends to be front-heavy, with strong dialogue. When it was remixed for 5.1, some interesting effects were created, as when the fiery wheelchair begins its descent into the Tattler parking garage from above and behind. Elsewhere, a helicopter landing makes pleasing use of all the speakers.
The original sound design of Silence of the Lambs remains exceptionally creepy, even if the available dynamic range and creative exploitation of the 5.1 is somewhat limited. Perhaps owing to its honored status, it was not tarted up much for Blu-ray. Hannibal, the newest of the bunch and the only one created in a post-Dolby Digital world, has its strengths, namely active surrounds, most notably in the opening gunfight but throughout as well. There is bass, but it's not subtle, and sometimes the dialogue is not as clear as it could be. In general, none of these discs takes proper advantage of the purity that high-definition audio can provide.
The Extras
Manhunter brings absolutely nothing to Blu-ray, despite some outstanding pre-existing content available on multiple Anchor Bay DVD releases, while Hannibal offers trailers for three other movies (Bulletproof Monk...?), despite a loaded special edition DVD. Although no extras whatsoever are noted on the packaging, Silence carries over all of the bonus material from its single-disc Blu-ray release, which in turn was largely ported from the 2006 special edition DVD: an assortment of featurettes, documentaries and vintage promotional tidbits, almost all in standard definition.
Final Thoughts
Curiously, Hannibal carries no metadata, my PS3 simply reads it as a generic "BD-ROM," while Manhunter has only basic, static menus. Might they be due for superior standalone reissues in the future? I'd be willing to hold off a purchase of The Hannibal Lecter Collection to find out. But if you can grab it as a rental it might make for a pre-halloween high definition fright night.
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