10 Best REVERSE Horror Movies

Possibly one of cinema's greatest anti-heroes, Hannibal Lecter just keeps coming back for more meat. He's been with us for over thirty years: four books, five movies and now two TV series. Well, almost. CBS's new show Clarice has made it abundantly clear that the good doctor will not feature but we all know that if they had the rights to the character, he'd show up in a flash.

While it's clear that Hannibal is an anti-hero, the morality behind his lifestyle choices remains a contentious one. Are his cannibalistic tendencies a compulsion? If so, does that let him off the hook? There would be no Dexter without Lecter, no Riddick and quite possibly no Sherlock either, perhaps demonstrating the public's capacity for forgiveness, provided you're a badass.

In Hannibal, the 2001 Ridley Scott sequel to The Silence Of The Lambs, he is now at large in Florence, consuming 'free range rude' with great aplomb, but what of his status as a villain? The whole 'people eating' thing certainly presents a problem but his motivation seems to be protecting Clarice (or himself), and don't kid yourself into believing that you didn't want to see Mason Verger, the real villain, having the rest of his face 'peeled.'

Author Thomas Harris clearly recognised the potential for a reverse character from his early days behind the glass, to his ability to, ahem, dish out justice to the latest alternative bad guy. Hannibal The Cannibal becomes Hannibal The Morally Grey Anti-hero, if he wasn't already.