Buy The SILENCE OF THE LAMBS House
NBC’s recently cancelled Hannibal did something I never thought it could: it carved out its own identity, in some ways eclipsing the previous cinematic iterations of Thomas Harris' creation. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that, in the wake of Bryan Fuller’s weirdly beautiful (and beautifully weird) take on the material, the 1991 Silence Of The Lambs might've dropped a few pegs in our cultural consciousness. But no matter the considerable achievements of Fuller & Co., something about Jonathan Demme’s grey, mournful vision of Clarice Starling's journey will always, always stick with me. If nothing else it remains a masterpiece of art direction, from the chilly confines of Quantico, to Hannibal Lecter’s subterranean cell, to the dead trees and grey skies of the film’s suburbs, where the film’s most heinous, nightmarish moments took place.
And now you can own a piece of it! Buffalo Bill’s house, located near Perryopolis, PA, went up for sale this week. Asking price: $300,000. It’s a beautiful home, built in 1910 in the Princess Anne style, with four bedrooms and one full bathroom. It's filled with gorgeous woodwork, and for a few weeks 24 years ago, it served as the location where Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) starved, killed and skinned several women in his endeavor to make a suit out of human flesh.
Apparently the foyer and dining room were the only interiors featured in the film, as the horrific basement was created on a soundstage. But still! Home-owning is quite often a giant pain in the ass: something always needs to be replaced, or fixed, or overhauled. It's a lot of work, and living inside a piece of film history might take the edge off that day-to-day hassle. (And at $994, the property takes seem pretty reasonable as well).
