Beauty Vs Beast: Lions Vs Lambs
Tuesday, May 27, 2014 at 12:55PM 
JA from MNPP here - last night I learned that one way to know a specific horror movie has left a deep mark on your brain is if you can identify it down to a scene just by hearing the screams of the actor(s) in said horror movie. It's like Name That Tune, but the nightmare version. I was minding my own business last night watching TV when what should erupt from the other room but horrible, blood-curdling shrieks. Thankfully I immediately knew the shrieks and felt no need to call 911 - my boyfriend was watching The Silence of the Lambs and those were the cries of Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) as she first gets a good look at the walls of the hole she's been tossed in by her captor Buffalo Bill.
A terrifying moment, to be sure, in a movie filled to the brink with them. And that alone might've been enough to inspire this week's edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast," but if you add on the second season finale of NBC's series Hannibal just aired this past week (please tell me we've got some fans up in here - it's blowing everything else on TV out of the water right now) along with the fact that last week was Brooke Smith's birthday (love her) and it's Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine's birthday in two days, and we've smack-dab in a cannibal maelstrom. What a delicious place to be!
Instead of having her face off against one of the killers it seemed best to leave Clarice Starling out of this competition - partially because she'd clearly be the easy winner, but moreso because the film itself uses the over-the-top grotesquerie of Bill as a mask to deflect us from Hannibal's true face. Are we fooled? Do Hannibal's manners trump Bill's, uh, dancing skills? Let it be known!
You've got until Monday to vote, and to spill some love and chianti out for your picks in the comments.
PREVIOUSLY Last week we pit the difficult-to-love ladies of Notes on a Scandal against each other, and y'all told Sheba to find herself another park-bench to sit on, the spot next to Baraba (Judi Dench) was taken. Armondo summed up the thought process it seems like most of us went through in the choosing...
"Sheba is hot and all, but apart from being immoral, she is so superficial and selfish that you cannot help but find her grating. It is like she has never matured and still thinks she is a young girl without nothing to worry about. And she is guilty of her own downfall (though she still thinks herself blameless). Barbara in the other hand is just a sociopath and a weirdo, but she's still aware of the effects of her actions (for better or for worse). So there's that at least."
Reader Comments (8)
That season finale of "Hannibal" was terrific--so much blood! It's my favorite show at the moment, and I'm glad we will find out the fates of all of these characters.
Hannibal Lecter is obviously awesome, but I always wanted to know more about Buffalo Bill. He just seemed a lot more interesting to me. I don't know...
Team Buffalo Bill and please don't ask me why... #lotioninthebasket
@Paul Outlaw
You do realize he's a tranny Nazi? I always remember the bright orange swastikas on his quilt. But you're also a Bale Head so you're a glutton for punishment.
Hannibal Lecter, of course. He had me at, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." Bonus for being so attentive to detail.
Lecter.
I mean.... he's literally "eating" all the other psycho killer wannabes for breakfast.
i wonder if voting would be different if people weren't so obsessed with Hannibal on tv? I honestly gave it a shot but it was way too grisly and enamored of grisliness (one sensed masturbatory violence at every turn) for me personally to stomach.
JA -- i totally don't know that Clarice and Hannibal wouldn't have been compeititive like you think. though it is is weird that 50/50 contests are so hard to come by.
Now you've got me curious what would happen with a Clarice Vs Hannibal showdown, Nat. I guess I'll just have to do that one in the future, SotL must have an anniversary or something coming up some time.
I obviously have a higher tolerance for grisliness than most but I think what Hannibal does is really interesting and is hugely successful at being Horror - it makes the horrific so beautiful you just can't look away, and it eases you in with its languid slow pace, so the entire experience becomes a waking nightmare. The thing is to be mortified, to be disturbed - I feel as if this show shakes me by the collar and says "Hey look violence is monstrous and sick-making" in a way not many TV shows have accomplished. It's such a profoundly SAD show.