Blog Dis
The James Gumm Tub...
2025-03-27
Down low, way down low in that most horrible of basements, where the skin of women has been cut away into neat little strips, then sewn into a make-shift body suit, that's where the tub was kept — an old, disgusting tub, rank with odor and full of dark, black body matter melted down into bones and liquid. The thought of this tub still makes me shudder. And, if I had to spend just one hour in this basement I'd feel terrorized, haunted for years to come, which in truth is how I reacted the first time to experiencing this movie which depicted such a basement, and its disgusting tub. This gem of a horror movie, to which I'm referring, is regarded to this day as one of the best horror flics of all-time. It's no mystery why Sir Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for 15 minutes of screen time for his stellar performance in The Silence of the Lambs.
Well, you should know by now that I keep a neat and tidy place, pretty much on a daily basis. I don't ever leave dirty dishes in the sink. I Swiffer once a week because the thought of dust bunnies collecting in my place gives me the willies. I clean my countertops and appliances regularly, to include kitchen and bathroom sinks. But I'm unable to scrub my old tub perfectly shiny and clean without recalling these images of the tub of horrors coming to mind. Sir Anthony's most evil of evil characters, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, ranks right up there as one of the top ten evil characters in film history. Think about it. The movie was released in 1991 and it terrorized viewers without the use of special effects, zero CGI, just plain ol' acting, strategic camera angles and brilliant pacing, which translates into suspense. The villain is portrayed as erudite and for all intents and purposes, a regular human being, who clearly isn't. So, when I venture into the basement of my apartment building, to where our waste is to be brought: recycling bins for plastic, paper and organic refuse, I'm brought back to this movie whenever I see the dust-filled floors and the oil spills, augmented by the aroma of diesel soaked pavement that permeates the entire enclosure. Dr. Lecter is surely lurking around the corner, smacking his lips.
That nasty James Gumm tub in the movie gave me chills down my spine. I called it the James Gumm tub, or rather I nicknamed it as such, because it was never formally given that name by the movie producers, nor by anyone who's seen it; it's just my way of relating to this movie and the folklore of arguably one of the most twisted movies, devoted to a brilliant, psychotic serial killer. The second villain in the movie, a sub-character to Dr. Lecter, is James Gumm, the other purely evil sociopath, in case you're wondering.
The other weekend, when I was bringing my recycling down to the basement, I couldn't resist making a joke inside the elevator to a young 20-something tenant, riding down with me. I brought up the James Gumm tub, to which the young girl didn't immediately make the connection, until I referenced Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and then she picked up on it immediately. "Oh no! That movie," she said, "that movie scared me..." I laughed, because endings to movies, well pretty much endings to anything, are not supposed to be pleasant; hence why they end. This is one of the reasons why dark humor won't ever go out of style, similar to why the expression of whistling past a graveyard has not lost its appeal. None of us wants to imagine the worst, the end, and encountering pure evil will forever rank right up there with surviving life by making narrow escapes, which is what it feels like to watch a horror movie with bravery, rather than to mute the volume at the scary parts or to cover your eyes.
I've one girlfriend who tells me that her husband is freaked out by horror movies and he refuses to watch even one, never has, never will. I feel that you should be able to find humour in almost anything that you do, with the exception perhaps of having surgery on your sex parts; hardly funny, I imagine, if you're not a willing participant who hasn't signed up for elective surgery in the first place. But if you were forced to spend one measly minute in the company of something scary, much less the James Gumm tub, you can at least pat yourself on the back and thank your lucky stars that you don't have to crawl into the tub and wallow in the horror.
Friday is a popular night for scary movies; hence the catchy term Friday Fright Night (loosely stolen from another American supernatural horror movie called Friday Night, made in 1985). If you've yet to see this gem, to which I've been referring, The Silence of the Lambs, there's a part of me that envies you, truly. So, I would be woefully remiss in my duties if I didn't whole-heartedly recommend that you watch it. When I did the first time, the guy I went with started to tap me on my shoulder, light taps that were very fast. I know he did this to deflate his own nerves, and maybe too to annoy me, to make me feel even more scared, when it was a pivotal scene that had me on the edge — the very scene where we get our first glimpse of the James Gumm tub. I laugh at it now but at the time I was ready to punch his arm. 😅
"Precious... don't you hurt my dog, lady!"
Well, you should know by now that I keep a neat and tidy place, pretty much on a daily basis. I don't ever leave dirty dishes in the sink. I Swiffer once a week because the thought of dust bunnies collecting in my place gives me the willies. I clean my countertops and appliances regularly, to include kitchen and bathroom sinks. But I'm unable to scrub my old tub perfectly shiny and clean without recalling these images of the tub of horrors coming to mind. Sir Anthony's most evil of evil characters, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, ranks right up there as one of the top ten evil characters in film history. Think about it. The movie was released in 1991 and it terrorized viewers without the use of special effects, zero CGI, just plain ol' acting, strategic camera angles and brilliant pacing, which translates into suspense. The villain is portrayed as erudite and for all intents and purposes, a regular human being, who clearly isn't. So, when I venture into the basement of my apartment building, to where our waste is to be brought: recycling bins for plastic, paper and organic refuse, I'm brought back to this movie whenever I see the dust-filled floors and the oil spills, augmented by the aroma of diesel soaked pavement that permeates the entire enclosure. Dr. Lecter is surely lurking around the corner, smacking his lips.
That nasty James Gumm tub in the movie gave me chills down my spine. I called it the James Gumm tub, or rather I nicknamed it as such, because it was never formally given that name by the movie producers, nor by anyone who's seen it; it's just my way of relating to this movie and the folklore of arguably one of the most twisted movies, devoted to a brilliant, psychotic serial killer. The second villain in the movie, a sub-character to Dr. Lecter, is James Gumm, the other purely evil sociopath, in case you're wondering.
The other weekend, when I was bringing my recycling down to the basement, I couldn't resist making a joke inside the elevator to a young 20-something tenant, riding down with me. I brought up the James Gumm tub, to which the young girl didn't immediately make the connection, until I referenced Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and then she picked up on it immediately. "Oh no! That movie," she said, "that movie scared me..." I laughed, because endings to movies, well pretty much endings to anything, are not supposed to be pleasant; hence why they end. This is one of the reasons why dark humor won't ever go out of style, similar to why the expression of whistling past a graveyard has not lost its appeal. None of us wants to imagine the worst, the end, and encountering pure evil will forever rank right up there with surviving life by making narrow escapes, which is what it feels like to watch a horror movie with bravery, rather than to mute the volume at the scary parts or to cover your eyes.
I've one girlfriend who tells me that her husband is freaked out by horror movies and he refuses to watch even one, never has, never will. I feel that you should be able to find humour in almost anything that you do, with the exception perhaps of having surgery on your sex parts; hardly funny, I imagine, if you're not a willing participant who hasn't signed up for elective surgery in the first place. But if you were forced to spend one measly minute in the company of something scary, much less the James Gumm tub, you can at least pat yourself on the back and thank your lucky stars that you don't have to crawl into the tub and wallow in the horror.
Friday is a popular night for scary movies; hence the catchy term Friday Fright Night (loosely stolen from another American supernatural horror movie called Friday Night, made in 1985). If you've yet to see this gem, to which I've been referring, The Silence of the Lambs, there's a part of me that envies you, truly. So, I would be woefully remiss in my duties if I didn't whole-heartedly recommend that you watch it. When I did the first time, the guy I went with started to tap me on my shoulder, light taps that were very fast. I know he did this to deflate his own nerves, and maybe too to annoy me, to make me feel even more scared, when it was a pivotal scene that had me on the edge — the very scene where we get our first glimpse of the James Gumm tub. I laugh at it now but at the time I was ready to punch his arm. 😅
"Precious... don't you hurt my dog, lady!"
