Manhunter

How come we don’t hear that much about serial killers these days? I like to think it’s because the global spirit of human brotherhood has just grown too powerful for even the most depraved of violent urges to be fulfilled. Either that or the advancement of forensic technology coupled with a host of societal and cultural factors has made serial murder both less appealing and the prospect of success less viable. Whatever the cause, serial killers have become increasingly rare, but there was a time when sequence murder was a genuine national terror, which explains the prevalence of movies like Manhunter, a 1986 detective film directed by Michael Mann and based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Although it’s outshined by its more successful younger sibling, Manhunter is actually the first film appearance of sophistic ...