Went to the press/pre-screening of the new Hannibal Lecter movie last Thursday (Hannibal Rising) downtown Vancouver. The movie itself was well-done and generally enjoyable, despite the fact that writer Thomas Harris aped the catalytic first-murder scene right from the 70's drive-in exploitation chef d'oeuvre Thriller (aka They Call Her One-Eye), the very same pic Tarantino aped for his "Elle Driver" character in the Kill Bill movies - and also depite the fact that the movie was ultimately unspectacular. It was the sheer unspectacular-ness of the whole affair that allowed me time to reflect on other aspects while the plot was unfurling before my eyes, and at the cinematic point where our lovable lead character Hannibal Lecter is carving the flesh of one of his several victims, literally torturing the man to death, that it dawned on me just how utterly perverse it was that this theatre full of 300-plus Canadian consumers and media addicts (myself included) were actually garnering a certain level of enjoyment and entertainment from hearing a tortured victim's screams for mercy and death in 6.1 digital surround sound while watching the blood flow in vivid colour thirty-six feet high in front of our eyes - and we all stayed in our seats for more, more, more!

At least I already know I'm totally perverse, and I'm all good with that - I just wonder if anyone else in the theater was pondering the irony of it all at the same time.

-V.