Editorials
Dear “Hannibal”, I Still Miss You
On April 4th, 2013, NBC premiered the first episode of “Hannibal“, the Bryan Fuller developed series based on characters created by Thomas Harris in his novels “Red Dragon”, “The Silence of the Lambs”, and “Hannibal”. Starring Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, Valhalla Rising, Clash of the Titans) in the title role, the series followed FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) as an empath who has the ability to investigate and understand crime scenes, and criminals, in startling, almost eerie ways.
I don’t have cable or basic TV channels. I haven’t had them for well over 20 years. When I moved into my own place and ordered internet, Comcast asked if I wanted TV, something I explicitly turned down. To this day, I still get calls asking if I want to upgrade my account to include even the most basic package, which, ridiculously, has something like 100+ channels. For those of you who have cable, that might seem like nothing. For me, that seems unnecessary. I remember as a child having 60-ish channels and that’s it.
I bring this up because “Hannibal” was the first show to make me seriously consider upping my package so that I could watch it as it aired. Something about it just drew me in, almost hypnotizing me with its gorgeous visuals and brilliantly built characters. It was a show where I would seek a fix once an episode ended because I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I needed more but had to be patient, much like Hannibal and how he was ever vigilant in selecting and ultimately dispatching his victims.
I miss “Hannibal”, which, as I’ve mentioned previously, “…was a gift from above for horror fans.” It featured some of the most gruesome and horrifying scenes I’ve ever witnessed, such as Hannibal making Dr. Abel Gideon (Eddie Izzard) eat his own leg or the people buried alive to act as fertilizer for fungi in “Amuse-Bouche”. Every episode expertly crafted a narrative around the crimes that delved further into the minds of each character, their own psyches the truly fascinating aspect of the series. For every moment we saw something nauseating, there was far more time dedicated to the haunting impact and toll these events had on those around them. Graham was breaking more and more with every episode, Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) desperate to come to his aid, Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) demanding control from his employees while desperately spiraling out of control with his wife and her illness. Hovering over them all, controlling them like a marionettist, was Hannibal, making them all dance on strings of his own weaving, his cold calculations deeply, intricately, and terrifyingly constructed.
As the show progressed, we only saw these relationships intertwine themselves further, becoming a web of distrust, suspicion, and unknowing betrayal, all according to Hannibal’s conniving plans. It’s only because of Hannibal’s affection for Will, and what he could potentially become, that the threads expose themselves, able to be pulled, unravelling the entire picture. It is because of this magnificent arrangement that the story was so enthralling. With every new revelation, with each new episode, the story moved forward and it felt meaningful, unlike shows where we have exciting premieres and finales but the middle feels lackluster. “Hannibal” was, in my opinion, a show that constantly progressed and evolved.
I miss the music, composed by Brian Reitzell. Yes, I can pop on my records anytime I wish or I can stream the soundtrack if I’m feeling lazy. But there was something delicious about hearing new music every episode that felt so disjointed and unsettling. It was dissonance of the purest form, the kind that mimics the tension on the screen as each layer of mystery is either added or unveiled, both fitting perfectly yet still feeling wrong and unwelcome. With a show so focused on intellectualism, introspection, and complex psychological patterns, there needed to be a soundtrack that aimed for those lofty heights. Reitzell met those heights and conquered them, week after week.
I miss the visuals, wonderfully brought to the screen by the directors and the show’s primary cinematographer James Hawkinson. Even in the first five minutes of the first episode, I knew that this was going to be a beautiful show and it never failed in that department. Every scene oozed beauty, even amidst the viscera. Splashes of blood arced gracefully through the air, bodies faded into nature, becoming one with the world around them, and even the food, which we knew was tainted and taboo, looked macabrely delicious. Some victims were transformed into angels, their majesty and horror vying for equal attention, while others were arranged in a gigantic eye, aimed to see a reflection that can’t possible be there.
I mourn the loss of a show that never hid from its horror foundation. Rather, it embraced it and aimed to elevate itself above all associated stigmas and preconceptions. It knew that horror could be smart, so it went there. It knew that horror could push boundaries, which it did. It knew that horror didn’t care about who or what you are, so everything was fair game. Being a witness to the craftsmanship behind “Hannibal” felt truly special as a horror fan. Rarely do we get something that looks and sounds so wonderful, that has such care and devotion given to every minute detail.
I could talk endlessly about my love of this series, but I feel that I need to come to an end and not overstay my welcome. So, to cap this off, I send these messages: To Bryan Fuller, thank you for developing “Hannibal”. To the cast and crew, thank you for bringing these characters and this story to life. To NBC, thank you for taking a chance and giving the show three seasons. To the fans of the series who so ardently and adamantly refuse to let go, thank you for your passion.
To “Hannibal” itself, thank you, I miss you, and I hope that one day we’ll see you again. Maybe for dinner?
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
You must be logged in to post a comment.