Doctor Hannibal Lecter is one of the most recognizable and terrifying horror movie villains ever to have graced the screen, with his genius intellect and chilling demeanor. An insane cannibal, Lecter is also a brilliant psychologist who can accurately profile the most gruesome and disturbed serial killers stalking the streets of the United States.
Through the course of Anthony Hopkins' three-film run as Doctor Lecter, the character has uttered some fantastic quotes, and some outrageously cheesy ones, as well. It's all part of the fun, but sometimes the writers went a bit too over the top when it came to making Lecter a pop culture icon.
"You Use Evyan Skin Cream. And Sometimes You Wear L'Air Du Temps. But Not Today!"
This cheesy Lecter quote came during the first exchange between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. After his insane cellmate "Multiple" Miggs makes a highly lewd and offensive statement about Starling's scent, Lecter weighs in. Instead of agreeing, he utters this quote, pointing out a few of the scents that Clarice is wearing, including Evyan skin cream.
While this might be probable, it's silly to think that Lecter could smell L'Air du Temps perfume on her, seeing as how he also claimed she wasn't even wearing it that day. While it could have been on her jacket, it's hard to believe that Lecter had the sense of smell to determine this from behind his glass wall.
"That's The Same Atrocious Aftershave You Wore In Court."
Red Dragon brought back the premise of Doctor Lecter's superhuman olfactory senses for a second time, though this one was far more believable, given the potency of some men's aftershave. It helped showcase Lecter's precise and disciplined skills of deduction and analysis, which is a trademark of his character.
Nevertheless, it's a cheesy way to start a conversation with Will Graham, the FBI agent responsible for putting Hannibal Lecter behind bars in the first place. Perhaps it was done to throw Graham off, but it ended up making audiences chuckle.
"Brave Clarice. You Will Let Me Know When Those Lambs Stop Screaming, Won't You?"
peeling back her layers and getting her to it the childhood traumas that led to her becoming the woman she grew into as an adult.
The heavy-handedness of the big reveal scene was well established, which makes this closing quote by Lecter somewhat cheesy, silly and quite melodramatic. It could be argued that it was all part of Lecter's over-the-top character.
"Quid Pro Quo. Yes Or No?"
Say it once and the audience might need clarification. Say it twice and the audience gets it. Say it several times more and it becomes a cheesy post for a character to hang one's hat. This is what happened with the popular "quid pro quo" saying that kept popping up in The Silence of the Lambs.
If nothing else, it added a bit of intellectualism to the cultural lexicon, but Doctor Lecter started relying on it a bit too much during his tense exchanges with Clarice Starling. By the time he made it rhyme, the phrase was ready for retirement.
"If I Tell You, I'm Afraid You Won't Even Try It."
The beginning of Red Dragon finds Doctor Lecter murdering an orchestral flute player and feeding his remains to the clueless board of directors later on. As the snobby uptight elites sit around the dinner table and discuss a manner of subjects, one of them asks what went into the making of the amuse-bouche on the plate in front of her.
Hannibal responds with this cheesy, but altogether predictable and enjoyable quote that winks and nods at the audience who know full well what's on the plate. It's one of the better uses of cheesy one-liners from Hannibal Lecter that serves to entertain an enthralled audience.
"I Must Confess To You, I'm Giving Very Serious Thought ... To Eating Your Wife!"
While hiding out in plain sight in Italy, Lecter begins rousing the suspicions of Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi, who seems to have identified his FBI most wanted status. Rather than take Lecter in, Pazzi tries to circumvent the law in order to capture Lecter and deliver him to his hated rival Mason Verger, in exchange for a big reward.
Pazzi ignores Clarice Starling's warnings to abandon his plan, but it's too late. Lecter confronts Pazzi and reveals his knowledge of the plan, then utters this quote as a would-be threat to try and get him to spill the beans. It ends with Pazzi meeting a gruesome end on the streets of Florence.
"Will You Stay With Me In My Prison Cell And Hold My Hand, Clarice? We Could Have Some Fun!"
The budding one-way romance between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling went into overdrive in the 2001 film Hannibal, but Staring clearly wasn't interested. During a conversation, Lecter goaded Clarice on the absurd notion that he'd turn himself in for no other reason than basic morality.
In truth, this quote might have been a direct nod to the novel version of Hannibal, which ends with him and Starling becoming lovers and fleeing the country together. The idea was fully rejected for the film version based on the highly improbable premise.
"Oh, And Senator, Just One More Thing. Love Your Suit!"
Lecter capitalized on a chance to escape from confinement when the serial killer Buffalo Bill kidnapped Catherine Martin, the daughter of prominent U.S. Senator Ruth Martin. He fed the FBI team false information in an attempt to get an up-close meeting with Martin, where he begins taunting her about her daughter's fate.
After giving them one final red herring to chase after, Lecter closes off the exchange with Senator Martin by uttering this quote, which is definitely one of the cheesiest.
"Okey-Dokey, Here We Go."
Ridley Scott's Hannibal featured a far more jovial and free-spirited Doctor Lecter in comparison to his appearance in The Silence of the Lambs, and the proof is in his caricatures. Though a highly respected intellectual and a man of the arts, Lecter seemed to have adopted an odd catch-phrase that stuck with him throughout the film.
Lecter utters this quote several times, including a scene where he interrogates Chief Inspector Pazzi before murdering him outright - definitely out of character, and one of Lecter's more cheesy one-liners.
"I Do Wish We Could Chat Longer, But I'm Having An Old Friend For Dinner."
Perhaps the most iconic and beloved of Hannibal's cheesiest quotes comes right at the end of the original Silence of the Lambs, after Doctor Lecter manages to escape confinement into the outside world. After Clarice solves the mystery of Buffalo Bill and eliminates him, Hannibal calls her from a payphone to congratulate her.
While Clarice desperately tries to get Lecter to reveal his whereabouts, he utters this quote before hanging up the phone and turning his attentions on Frederick Chilton, the hapless director of the sanitarium who inflicted psychological tortures on Lecter, in an attempt to one-up him.
