10 Perfect Horror Movie Lines
1. "I Ate His Liver With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti" - The Silence Of The Lambs
16 minutes.
That's exactly the amount of screen time Sir Anthony Hopkins required to breath life into a character that earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and has subsequently been acclaimed as one of the most iconic and enduring names in cinematic, let alone horror, history. Any self respecting film buff will know instantly that this writer is referring to the Welshman's immortal turn as cannibal psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter in 1991's Oscar magnet The Silence of the Lambs.
One of the single most electrifying and captivating dramatic performances of all time, everything from the voice Hopkins bestows upon his character to his array of chilling mannerisms are executed with such jaw-dropping perfection that the actor remains synonymous with the role 32 years after the film debuted.
Lecter's most famous line, endlessly imitated and parodied, comes when Clarice Starling arrives under the pretence of testing him, where he informs her of what became of the last unfortunate person attempting to do so.
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
While this line - and the harrowing sound effect Hopkins delivers immediately afterwards - constitutes chilling perfection in itself from a script writing perspective, it gets even better when one realizes that Lecter is actually making a gleefully sick joke. As the psychopathic cannibal is well aware, his predilections could potentially be treated with anti-depressants called MAOIs - guess what you can't eat when you're taking them?
Wine, liver and beans. Horrific perfection.