My Top 3 Romantic Scary Movies — Hannibal & The Village & Dracula
The combination of gothic pathos and obsessive love can be quite romantic to the point of swooning delirium. I’ve picked the top 3 on my list, not necessarily because I can watch them repeatedly (my tolerance for fear and tension combined is very short to be almost nonexistent), but because the male lead spouts some romantic avowal that slips through my skeptical wall.
Hannibal With Anthony Hopkins in the title role, what could have been a repulsive character is transformed into a suave, charming and romantic man, whose fixation on Detective Starling becomes thrilling in its grandiosity.
A scene where Hannibal, posing as a certain Dr. Fell, was asked by a female character whether he believed a man could “become so obsessed with a woman from a single encounter,” responded, “Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her? Find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight, and ache for him?”
And in their last encounter, where Detective Starling handcuffs him to herself to prevent him from escaping, the audience is made to believe that he chopped off her hand in order to get away; but, the final shots focus on his forearm where he is obviously dismembered, making it clear that he would rather cut off his own hand than harm a single hair on her head. Oh, his grand romantic gesture is just so stirring.
The Village In the M. Night Shyamalan directed movie, Joaquin Phoenix becomes an unlikely romantic male lead, Lucius, whose strong affections for the female lead, Ivy, is so discreet, that she tries to push him to declare himself.
In an on edge portion of the movie where the whole village is on the alert for an attack of the mysterious creatures plaguing them, Lucius and Ivy enjoy an unlikely private moment together. However, Ivy’s strong willed character rears its head in a question that takes his breath away, “When we are married, will you dance with me? I find dancing very agreeable.”
Her question is met with a shocked silence that she continues, “Why can you not say what is in your head?”
He recovers and sputters angrily, “Why can you not stop saying what is in yours? Why must you lead, when I want to lead? If I want to dance, I will ask you to dance. If I want to speak, I will open my mouth and speak. Everyone is forever plaguing me to speak further.
“Why? What… good is it to tell you you are in my every thought from the time I wake? What good can come from my saying I– I sometimes cannot think clearly, or- or do my work properly?
“What gain can rise from my telling you… the only time I feel fear as others do, is when I think of you in harm? That is why I am on this porch, Ivy Walker. I fear for your safety above all others. And yes… I will dance with you on our wedding night.”
His declaration is so unwilling that it can only be truthful, making it even more endearing.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula When the luscious Gary Oldman interprets the fearful Prince of the Undead, he imbues him with so many sympathetic qualities that one becomes totally willing to become a female vampire.
When Draculea arrives in his castle to find his beloved wife had killed herself under the mistaken belief he was slain in battle, and that the Church has condemned her soul he proclaims, “I renounce God! I shall rise from my own death to avenge hers with all the powers of darkness!”
His declaration makes it clear that his reason for choosing a cursed life is to be with his beloved. And yet, when he finally finds his wife Elisabeta reincarnated in a female by the name of Mina Murray, played by Winona Ryder, and she readily agrees to share his blighted life, he tries to dissuade her, “You’ll be cursed as I am and walk through the shadow of death for all eternity. I love you too much to condemn you.”
Once again, love proves itself to be the most powerful force that moves all kinds of life, whether they are human or otherwise, to feats beyond what is thought to be characteristic of the species.
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