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Reviews
Orca (1977)
Hang my head in shame
I can remember in my youth, when this film first came out, thinking it was the best thing since sliced bread. I sat through it three times in one sitting (in the days when they didn't chuck you out of the cinema between programs). I voted Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling best actor and actress in the Film Review poll for 1977.
I recently saw it again - and cringed. It is so awful. The plot is ridiculous, the acting, that I thought so good, is laughable; the special effects lamentable. It simply tried to cash-in on the success of Jaws (much as the later and equally funny "Grizzly" did) and failed abysmally.
I can't believe I rated it so highly.
On a positive note, though. I still think it has the best soundtrack that Ennio Morricone ever produced.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
An intelligent chiller
For once an intelligent chiller. One that plays on the mind rather than the gut. There is no explicit violence but that which is implied - as in the scene where Dr Chilton shows Clarice the photograph of an earlier Lector victim - is breathtaking.
Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lector is superb, but I can't help wondering how Brian Cox (Hannibal in "Manhunter") would have interpreted the part.