"Have the lambs stopped screaming, Clarice?" Hannibal Lecter (playedܫ exquisitely by Anthony Hopkins) asks Clarice Starling (the excellent Jodie Foster) during The Silence of the Lambs. There are few lines in cinema as iconic, and for good reason – it's unsettling, creepy, and sticks w𓆉ith you long after the credits have rolled. Even now, 30 years after the movie’s release, it’s utterly terrifying.

Horror is a genre that ages quickly. A lot of older movies just aren't as scary as they were compared to when they were first released. The Silence of the Lambs, though, has that same thrill factor while also being severely dated in other ways. Released on Valentine’s Day in 1991, the movie – which sees the ambitious young FBI employee Clarice work with the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal to track down the💙 serial killer Jame Gumb, AKA Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) – is the only horror movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars, with Foster and Hopkins winning Best Actress and Best Actor at the same ceremony. It was lauded at the time and remains popular now, with a sequel series centered on Clarice currently airing. 

Why the acclaim? Firstly, Hannibal Lecter is outright scary – frightening because he is measured, intelligent🍎, and has good manners (at least, for a monstrous cannibal). Hopkins' performance is cool and precise. In conversation with Foster for to commemorate the movie's anniversary, Hopkins said: "The voice had come to me on the first reading. Jonathan [Demme] asked me, and I said, ‘He’s like a machine. He’s like HAL, the💮 computer in 2001: 'Good evening, Dave.'’ He just comes in like a silent shark." 

: "The same insanity that causes their transness, is the thing that causes them to become killers, and causes them to be seen as frightening." This isn't unique to The Silence of the Lambs &nda𒅌sh;&nbs𝔉p;horror as a genre often falls prey to insensitive tropes to depict the 'Other', AKA the thing we're meant to be scared of. 

However, Clarice, an upcoming ꦬTV ♒show about the FBI agent's life post-Silence of the Lambs, has recently cast Jen Richards, a trans actor. "All I can say is that the character intersects with Clarice’s storyline in a way that her transness isn’t central to her storyline," Richards said of her casting in a recent statement. "But her identity as a trans woman prompts her to discuss with Clarice the complicated legacy of Buffalo Bill." 

There's no doubt tha💦t the horror of The Silence of the Lambs still holds up, 30 years after its release. It's a scary movie, but one that isn't without its faults. Without it, the serial killer horror genre would have been a lot different today, the movie still influencing modern shows such as David Fincher’s Mindhunter. And while further additions to the stories of Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter cannot erase what came before, projects like Clarice can help fans reckon with their feelings towards a movie with a complicated legacy. 

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