Red Dragon (2002)

As any horror auteur knows, a good villain is hard to create, and much harder to let go of. The famed Cannibalistic psychology expert "Doctor Hannibal Lecter," as brought to life by British acting legend Anthony Hopkins, has been one of the creepiest and most charismatic cinematic bogeymen of recent red-screen memory. Anthony even won an Oscar for his portrayal of the character in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). So, of course the studios couldn't let Mr. Hopkins one and done the role when there was so much money to be made. But while The Silence of the Lambs starts with Hannibal the Cannibal stuck in prison, in the prequel Red Dragon (2002), we see how he ended up there. Hopkins gives his third performance as the psychopathic gourmand in this Brett Ratner film, which starts out with young Will Graham (Edward Norton) surviving a stabbing at the hands of Hannibal after the FBI Agent comes very close to figuring out he's been doing the killings that Will's been investigating. Hannibal's put behind bars, and Will quits working for the FBI, until a few years later when the Bureau needs his help figuring out who keeps killing people during full moons. The media have dubbed the psycho, "The Tooth Fairy" and the FBI needs Will's help, while Will needs Hannibal's help, to take down the killer who prefers to be called The Red Dragon (Ralph Fiennes). But Hannibal might not just know all about the psyche of the serial killer, he might know him as a friend. Chronologically, this one takes place before Hannibal meets our darling Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), but in our hard on rankings, it'll always be above that better known film. See, while Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) has a thing for turning fat girls into skin suits, the Red Dragon lets us see a sweet rack on one of his victim's cadavers. Marguerite MacIntyre has a set we'll never get tired of looking at, even if the perky pink nipped pair is only shown after she's been slaughtered. Can we get a nice glass of chianti, and a sliding off of the panties? After seeing those in Red Dragon, we'd like to have those things draggin across our face!