ZooScope

Tag: Detective

  • The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Orion Pictures. 1991.

    Alongside terrific and terrifying characters such as Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, there is another sinister dramatis persona evoked in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs – that of the ‘Death’s Head Hawk-Moth’ and Buffalo Bill’s relation to them. It is unsurprising that the moth in this scene invokes dread in Clarice and the audience,…

  • Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. 2005.

    Why does Batman dress like a bat? In the words of Batman himself, “bats frighten me. It’s time my enemies shared my dread.” In Batman Begins, the boundaries between human and animal are psychologically breached through Bruce’s lifelong phobia of bats. This all-consuming dread leads to Bruce’s attempt to confront this fear through exposure therapy.…

  • Turner and Hooch. Dir. Roger Spottiswoode. Touchstone Pictures. 1989.

    Charles Darwin once stated ‘It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog’. [1] In the case of Turner and Hooch (1989), Hooch’s love for Turner and vice versa takes its time and only arises onside the development of a perfect police office-police dog understanding and partnership.…

  • The Watchmen. Dir. Zach Snyder. Warner Bros. 2009.

    What can dogs tell us about criminality? With regards to Zach Snyder’s Watchmen, the answer is ‘quite a lot.’ Dogs are used within the film to align the binaries of legality and criminality with humanity and animality. There is a particular focus on the possibilities of transgression, as both the anti-hero and the villain commit…

  • Oldboy. Dir. Park Chan-wook. Show East & Tartan Films. 2003.

    Park Chan-wook’s 2003 film Oldboy is at its core a thriller, a revenge story of Oh Dae-su (played by Choi Min-sik) imprisoned in a room for 15 years without any knowledge of the reasons why, and who is then suddenly released back into the world and told by his captor to try to work out…

  • Gone Girl. Dir. David Fincher. 20th Century Fox. 2014.

    On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne receives an unexpected phone call from his neighbour, who has spotted his indoor pet cat wandering outside the house. When Nick returns, not only does he discover that his cat has been misplaced, but his wife, Amy has disappeared too. Leaving a staged crime scene…

  • Zootopia. Dir. Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2016.

    Dreams can be powerful things; and to Judy Hopps, no dream is greater than becoming Zootopia’s first rabbit police officer. After years of chasing her goal however, Judy discovers that maybe her dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Finding herself in a world dominated by bigger, stronger animals; Judy faces discrimination as she…

  • Zootopia. Dir. Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2016.

    Zootopia [1] presents a story about the first rabbit police officer teaming up with a fox confidence trickster to stop their city descending into anarchy. The film is a modern take on a classic animal fable, using Aesopian tropes of animals representing certain personalities alongside a technology rich, modern setting.

  • A Matter of Loaf and Death. Dir. Nick Park. BBC. 2008.

    Beloved characters Wallace and his side-kick canine Gromit return for another film, and this time they are running Top Bun, a brand new bakery. Business is booming for the duo, but a serial killer is on the loose, killing all the bakers in town. While Gromit begins to fear for the pair’s safety, Wallace is…

  • Hannibal. Dir. Ridley Scott. MGM. 2001.

    Hannibal the Animal: An Analysis of Animal Presence in Hannibal Fig. 1. Hannibal Lecter. All pictures are taken directly from film unless otherwise stated. The sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Ridley Scott’s Hannibal is set a decade after FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling (Julienne Moore) closed a serial-murder case with the help of incarcerated cannibal Dr. Hannibal…