Hey guy’s, Prometheus here and welcome back to FRIGHT FIGHT FRIDAY! Every week, we take two of the toughest horror movie baddies and have them face off against each other for your entertainment! I have devised eight-man brackets, each bracket with its own theme! Today is round #1 of our HUMAN bracket semi-finals, HANNIBAL LECTER VS THE COLLECTOR! For a quick rundown of the rules, click here! To catch up on past fights, click here and type in FRIGHT FIGHT FRIDAY!
For semi-final rounds and finals, I will keep the fighter introductions shorter, being they have already been introduced in their prior fights! Let’s go!
HANNIBAL LECTER
Hannibal won his first fight against Herbert West to move on the semi-finals. A genius, literally and also a cold-blooded, calculated killer. With Hannibal, it’s chess, never checkers and he is always two moves ahead. He is skilled in hand to combat though, don’t let his giant brain fool you! Hannibal is one serious dude.
THE COLLECTOR
Sadistic, sick and frightfully twisted, the Collector gets his kicks from causing pain. He won his last fight against Papa Jupiter in quite a shocking manner. He doesn’t go for a quick death, he likes to maim and torture, utilizing various boobytraps to his advantage. He is a large man with an intimidating demeanor and is in great physical condition.
FIGHT
The heavy steel door buzzes as the lock is disengaged. Two correctional officers meet her at the doorway, along with the warden. "Welcome to Marion Federal Penitentiary, ma'am," he extends his hand in greeting. "I'm Warden Guthrie, we spoke on the phone."
"Right." She shakes his hand firmly. "Agent Schofield. Thank you for the opportunity."
"Aw hell, just happy to help our friends at the bureau." A serious look comes over his face, as he looks her up and down. His tone becomes softer. "You sure you want to do this?"
"Absolutely."
"Right this way, then." He leads her down a long, dimly lit corridor. The two guards follow closely behind. "There's a few... security measures we need to discuss. First, and foremost never, and I mean never, let your guard down. Not for a moment. Second, keep your hands to yourself at all times. No passing anything or touching the prisoner for any reason. And agent, do not agitate my prisoner. They are kept calm and sedated for good reason. Lastly, you're a visitor here. This is my house. My rules."
She smiles politely, "Not my first rodeo, sir. I've profiled and interviewed the worst of them."
"Yes, I imagine you probably have," he replies matter of factly. "But, none of them are like our friend here."
"How so?"
The warden stops walking suddenly causing the guard on the left to bump into him. "Ma’am, I once saw this man tear into the jugular of a nurse with his teeth while his arms were secured behind his back. When we entered the room, he was sitting calmly at the table with a smile on his face as if nothing happened."
"So, he's crazy. I can handle crazy."
"No, ma'am. All our inmates are crazy. This one is... something else." He lowers his tone as he finishes his thought. "We never found the piece of her, you know, that he bit off."
They continue down the hall to another locked door. "This is our secure unit for the criminally insane." He places a key in the door and twists it, popping the lock. "We still use keys in this wing. Call me old fashioned, but I don't trust technology.” He nods in the direction of the unit. “At least, not with them."
The door slides open and immediately after they enter, he shuts and locks it behind them with an ominous thud. On each side of the scantily lit hallway is a row of cells. Prisoners yell obscenities at the only woman they've seen in years, possibly decades in some cases, as they pass by.
"Don't walk too close to the cells. God forbid one of them were to get their hands on you. All the way down, last cell on the left."
As she reaches the end of the corridor the last cell becomes visible. The man inside stands with his back to her.
“Lecter, on your knees,” says one of the two guards as they both enter the cell. “You know the drill.” They shackle his hands and his feet with cold chains. “Try anything, anything at all, and the mask goes back on.” Stay on your knees until we exit the cell.”
As the two men slip out of the cell and back down the corridor with the warden, Hannibal stands and spins around slowly. A warm smile washes across his face, yet his eyes are cold and empty. “They think I’m a monster, you know?”
“Aren’t you?” Her tone is firm, unshaken by his familiarity.
“To some, maybe. It’s all a matter of perception.”
“Tell me, Mr. Lecter, how is murder to be perceived as anything but monstrous?”
“Dr. Lecter, my dear and riddle me this. If a monster were to kill one of his own, is it not one less monster?”
“Yeah, yeah, save the bear in the woods shit. I didn’t come here for riddles, Doctor.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t. So, tell me. Why did you come?”
“My name is Agent Scho…”
“I know your name, agent. What I asked, was your purpose.”
“I need your help. Quite frankly.”
“My help? Interesting.” Hannibal walks closer to the edge of the steel mesh cell.
“I’ll play. What is it that you need my help with, Agent Schofield?”
“There’s a man, committing these horrible murders. Whole families in some cases.”
“Families are murdered everyday agent, why come here? Why to me?” His tone is harsher, but not loud.
“You didn’t let me finish. This man, he sets up elaborate traps. He kills everyone in the house except one person. He always takes one person. We don’t know why he does it, but we’ve been calling him the Collector.”
“That’s a nice little story agent, but why would the FBI need my help? This all sounds like routine work for you. No, there’s something else. What brings you all this way? Why are you here Natasha?”
Hearing her name visibly surprises her. “How do you know my name?”
“I told you, I know who you are. As sure as I am that you did your homework on me agent, be sure that I did mine on you.”
“Yeah, well it’s Agent Schofield. Got it, Doctor?”
"Fair enough agent, but you still haven't told me the most important thing?"
"And what is that?"
"Why I should care. What difference would it make to me, in here, if he were to kill again?"
"These are innocent people. With families."
"No, agent! You've got to do better than that! You've got to make me feel it! Now convince me!"
Agent Scofield thinks carefully before she speaks, sure that he's trying to trip her up. "Fine," she replies flatly. "I knew this was a waste of time. You're just a washed-up, old man."
Hannibal smiles, amused at her attempt to outthink him. "Do you really think that your dollar store psychology tricks will work on me? I invented half of those tricks.” He shakes his head in contempt. “Tisk, tisk, tisk. Still, I will help you. Not because of your desperate attempt to make me feel inadequate, but because I find what this man does to be, well… distasteful.”
“You’re aware of the man I’m speaking of? How?”
“Even monsters are privy to a newspaper every now again, Agent Schofield. Now, how do you plan to catch this man? A man that has eluded you up until now?”
“I found one of his boobytrapped homes before the family came back. I must have scared him off, but I got pictures of the traps. Can I show them to you?”
She opens a manilla folder she had been holding underarm and slips out a large print photo, holding up so that he can see it.
“Interesting, but not enough.”
“What do you mean, not enough? I have more pictures…”
“No, I mean pictures will not be enough. If it’s a proper profile you want of this man, I’m going to need to get closer. I’ll need to inspect the environment.”
“You must be kidding. I can’t take you out of here! They’ll have my badge. I don’t have that authority.”
“No, you probably don’t. So, I suggest you get on the phone with whoever does.”
“Or what?” Her tone is sharp and harsh.
“Or I’ll just go back to reading my paper…”
He knew she was there the whole time. He was watching, from inside the walls. So, the FBI is on to him, that’s no surprise. Her finding the house, and the boobytraps certainly is though. No matter, she thinks she ran him out. She’ll be back soon. Back to snoop around and look for clues.
He works quickly, switching the traps around and redesigning them. When she does return, she won’t know what she’s walking into.
Several hours later, he hears the sound of the door creak open as he lies in wait within the walls. A man enters along with a female FBI agent from earlier. His face is obscured by a metal mask of some sort.
“You move the wrong way Lecter; and I’ll shoot you. Are we clear?”
“Yes, now lead me to the trap you showed me the picture of.” His shackles rattle as he follows behind her toward one of the bedrooms on the second floor.
As they ascend the stairs, the creaks and moans from the old wood get louder and louder. Hannibal stops in the middle, feeling something is amiss.
“Stay close, remember the plan.” says Agent Schofield.
“Just a cramp. Right behind you.”
The agent steps down on the next stair and the wood collapses away. Her foot crashes through, landing on top of a caltrop that had been placed underneath. The spike goes through her foot, her leg twists and breaks at the knee with a loud snap as she goes down, effectively trapping her in place. She cries out in pain, looking up at Hannibal. “Help me…”
She reaches her hand up to him, he leans down slowly, careful not to break the wood anymore. He stops close to her face as he speaks.
“Remove my shackles and my mask so I can see.”
Quickly, she unfastens his chains and unlocks the metal mask.
“I figured the traps would be rearranged, though I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to expect.” He reaches his hand down as if to help free her leg, but instead, grabs her gun off her waist. “Don’t worry, your wounds are bad, but not fatal. I will send help once I am a safe distance away.”
“So, you never meant to help, you just wanted to escape?”
“I wasn’t entirely sure I would get the chance, but yes. Do your self a favor, and do not pursue me, Natasha. Or I assure you, your next wounds will be much more than fatal.” Hannibal heads back down the stairs and as he reaches the bottom, the Collector bursts through a weak spot in the wall, knocking the gun from his hand.
The two of them land hard on the floor by the bottom of the stairs as the gun slides across the linoleum and comes to a stop by the fridge. They both get to their feet and the Collector pulls out a knife. He lunges forward, slicing with the blade but Hannibal is quick and evades the attack, picking the chain form his shackles up of the steps.
Again, the Collector attacks with the knife, this time slicing open Hannibal’s prison uniform just above the navel. Hannibal waits for the right moment and as the Collector swings again, he wraps his arm with the chain and squeezes.
The Collector drops the knife as his elbow pops out of its socket but before Hannibal can pick it up, a fist lands hard on his jaw dazing him. He swings the chain, this time connecting with the skull. The Collectors knees buckle at the impact, but he doesn’t go down.
Grabbing Hannibal by the shirt, he throws him into the wall hard leaving a dent in the drywall. Hannibal slowly gets to his feet, visibly staggered by the blow to the head. The Collector looks over at Agent Schofield, her consciousness becoming harder and harder to hold onto.
“The gun,” she says softly, gesturing in the direction of the fridge. “Get my gun.”
Hannibal watches patiently as the man picks up the semi-automatic pistol. He staggers toward him methodically, a mischievous gleam in his eye. The barrel of the gun raises as the Collector takes aim. Hannibal closes the gap between them quickly, the hammer on the gun goes off, once, then twice but nothing happens.
“It’s a dummy clip, you sick fuck” says Natasha as she holds up the clip with the actual bullets.
Hannibal wraps the chain around the man’s neck while in his state of confusion and squeezes hard from behind him. The chain grows tighter and tighter until blood begins to drip from beneath it. His eyes bulge from their sockets as if they might burst. He struggles to loosen the chain but there’s no use.
The man’s hands go limp by his side and Hannibal relinquishes his grip, dropping his lifeless body to the floor.
“I’m impressed, doctor. How did you know our plan would work?”
“Intuition, Agent Schofield. Possibly a bit of luck, as well.”
“Yeah, well the clip full of blanks was genius.”
“It had to be blanks. Same weight as a regular clip. With is obvious military background he would have known if the clip was empty right away.”
“You did a good thing, Dr. Lecter. Thank you. Now help me the hell out of here.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t part of the plan, Natasha. Although we make a great team, I’m afraid I’ve grown tired of the restraints of imprisonment and require a much… warmer climate.”
“You can’t fucken leave me here alone!”
“I bid you farewell, agent. Remember, do not pursue me and I will not pursue you. As delicious as you look, I have no ambition to harm you. Help will be here soon. That, I promise. Take care, Natasha.”
“I will not let you get away with this, doctor. I’ll find you.”
“You probably will. Someday…”
HANNIBAL LECTER
This one was tougher to call than I thought it would be. The Collector is not only a tough bastard, but he’s resourceful and clearly well trained. For me, it came down to Hannibal’s ability to understand human nature and foresee The Collector's next move. He was able to devise a plan that not only freed him but tricked the Collector into thinking he had the upper hand.
That’s exactly how you beat a bigger, stronger opponent. You outthink him. I feel this is a pretty fair representation of how Hannibal’s devious, yet genius mind works. To take down Hannibal, you’re going to need more than brawn and some traps.
What do you think out there? Am I way off? Yell at me in the comments and let me know how you saw it play out!
That’s it, for now, folks but stay tuned! Next Friday is round #2 of our HUMAN bracket semi-finals, CAPTAIN SPAULDING VS PATRICK BATEMAN! Until next time, keep on geekin’ on, my friends!
Joshua "Prometheus" Scafidi
