POP! Movies – Silence of the Lambs: Hannibal Lecter

Company: Funko

Series: POP! Movies

Year: 2013

Silence of the Lambs is an incredible film, and one that has been rightly influential in the 25 years since it’s been released. Jodie Foster as lead character Clarice Starling put in the great performance, and I think it would probably still be a much-admired film had she been the sole drawcard – but what pushed it into truly iconic territory was Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter.

This POP depicts Hannibal in his most iconic garb – straitjacket, face mask and propped up on a gurney. This scene is great, as it’s a really good insight into just how horrific Hannibal really is. We already know that he’s an evil man, having heard about his murders and assaults previously, and seen his emotional manipulation of Clarice, but the way he behaves towards the Senator is on a whole different level of cruelty.

The sculpting is a nice, stylised version of his appearance in the film. All the core details are there – mask, gurney, orange jumpsuit. He’s been sculpted with a fuller head of hair than Anthony Hopkins had at the time, but one must allow for some creative license. The restraints on the gurney are cast of hard plastic, rather than being soft rubber, and they’re glued in place. You could probably pry them off, but you would probably damage either the figure or the gurney in the process.  

In the past, Anthony Hopkins has apparently been very reluctant to license his in-character likeness for an item he perceived as a “toy”. Adult collectors know that a Hannibal Lecter toy is not going to be marketed to children, but I can appreciate where his reasoning was coming from – you only need to look at the ridiculous controversy around Toys R Us and Breaking Bad to see how that sort of thing can blow up in people’s faces (even worse than Gus’ did). At any rate, this isn’t a major drama for Funko, as their stylised look means that they don’t need to actually secure likeness rights. But he must have come to the table in some form, as the box depicts his photo on the back, complete with Silence of the Lambs’ signature death’s-head hawkmoth over the mouth.  

It’s a shame that there was no POP of Clarice Starling made – her look wasn’t quite as iconic as Dr Lecter’s here, but given that she was the main character, it’s disappointing. But as this POP was first released in 2013, it seems unlikely that he is going to get a shelf companion anytime soon. Still, Hannibal is a fun, if macabre, addition to the shelves of just about any Funko collector. You don’t need to be a full-blown horror fan to appreciate the character in the same way you do for say, Jason or Michael Myers.