Movie Comparison: The Silence of The Lambs (1991) and A Quiet Place (2018)

The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological horror movie starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI’s academy training center and Anthony Hopkins as Doctor Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychologist who turned into a psychopathic cannibal murderer. A Quiet Place on the other hand, is led by two main characters which are Lee Abbott (played by John Krasinski), a strong father figure and his equally strong wife, Evelyn Abbott (played by Emily Blunt) along with their family in a post-apocalypse horror movie.

Both movies are driven by similar horrific themes but deliver them in very different ways. In The Silence of The Lamb, the element of horror is mainly exercised through crime which includes graphic depiction of murdered victims and explicit description of Hannibal Lecter’s past crimes. There’re also subtler aspects of horror that can be seen in instances when Dr Hannibal Lecter manipulates situations to his advantage. A Quiet Place on the other hand, utilises a more “in your face” idea of horror, using monstrous sound sensitive aliens as the main antagonist. The story plays a lot around the sense of imminent danger and suspense as the Abbott family silently trudge their way out of peril. The suspense is further boosted by the delayed introduction of the aliens which kept the audience curious about the actual threat that the characters are facing in the story.

Both stories also used two different concepts of time utilisation. In The Silence of the Lamb, Dr Hannibal Lecter sensed the urgency of Starling’s situation (to capture Buffalo Bill) and used it to force Starling to disclose personal information to him, which she was warned not to do in the first place. He delayed time to gain maximum benefits. As a contrast, in A Quiet Place, Lee Abbott manipulates time in a classical survival way: quick split-second decisions. To survive, the Abbott family uses most of their time into practical solutions instead of waiting around. They gain maximum benefit by immediate actions.

Other differences that usually surfaces when comparing old movies to recent ones were also noticed. The differences includes cinematography, the setting, and style of language used. Both movies are brilliant in their own ways and are fun to watch. The most intriguing quality that I like is the stark difference of how human’s psychology is painted in each movie with The Silence of The Lamb emphasizing on the bad side (psychopathy) while A Quiet Place emphasized on the good side (resilience, creativity) of human’s psychology.