This past week I got the chance to watch Hannibal Rising, a prequel to the legendary movie cycle on Dr.Hannibal Lecter. This will be a brief review, and I will cut to the chase.

I had previously expressed my excitement that a new movie on Lecter was out. The movie’s plot, however, was a bit far-fetched. Like the critic I cited said, it “doesn’t hesitate to avail itself of whatever historical boogeyman it needs to advance the plot, whether it’s Klaus Barbie’s exportation of French children to Auschwitz or the loss of one’s entire family in Hiroshima.” Hannibal Rising contained enough violence, sadism, and sheer evil to sustain a person a lifetime. I must confess the movie was, in my estimation, the darkest and most graphic story of Lecter.

Hannibal Rising was basically about the metamorphosis of Hannibal from a normal boy into the cannibalistic serial killer we have all known him to be. Good movie if you are interested in the shaping of this violent, yet sophisticated, mind.