30 Nights of Terror - Oct. 4

Hannibal Lecter is the best known villain since Professor Moriarty. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris' first novel about the FBI'S Behavioral Science Unit, was filmed twice. In 1986 Lecter wasn't a household word. He appears in Michael Mann's adaptation of RD three times and is played by Brian Cox. Manhunter is the story of the empathic Will Graham, called out of retirement after a serial killer has begun murdering entire families in a ritualistic fashion. Graham can enter a killer's mind fairly easily. It's the exiting that's difficult.
Graham ends up consulting Lecter in his cell at the Antonioni-white Chesapeake Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter toys with him and sets off a panic reaction in Graham when he tells him
" We're alike, you and me." When it's discovered that the wanted perp aka the Tooth Fairy has been corresponding with Lecter through a tabloid's classified section, Graham stages an interview and photo op with the odious Freddie Lounds, tab journalism's star. Freddie is abducted and tortured by the Tooth Fairy. His awful reentry into the outside world is captured in a mere four shots.

Enough of the synopsis. Red Dragon was filmed again in 2002 with Anthony Hopkins in his final appearance as Lecter. It's a dismal film that shows us its best sequence ( Graham's capture of Lecter) before the credits roll. Michael Mann's somewhat dated version is, according to me, the better of the two. Tomorrow - Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat.