9 Horror Movie Villains Who Turned Hero In The Sequel
2. Hannibal Lecter - Hannibal
After his career-defining performance as everyone's favourite high-society cannibal, Anthony Hopkins returned to the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the 2001 film just called Hannibal.
In this film, Dr. Lecter is on the run not just from the police but also one of his former victims. The wealthy Mason Verger has used bribery and intimidation to rope Clarice Starling into luring Hannibal out. He plans to capture the psychopath and take his revenge.
It sounds like there are two very bad people with poor old Clarice getting caught in the middle. Whilst this is true, her former tormentor does do at least one thing right.
Hannibal and Clarice are both captured by Verger, who intends to feed them to carnivorous wild boars. Just when it looks like Ms. Starling is done for, Hannibal swoops in and rescues her.
Whilst his reasons for doing this are a lot more complex than just wanting to do good, Hannibal does save the life of the main protagonist. By proxy, this makes him a hero on at least some level.
He does then feed a guy his own brain almost immediately after, but shush.