Using fast-tempo percussion and haunting sweeps of strings, plus a boys choir, he underscores the film's suspenseful moments, but only in a few passages, notably during 'Let My Home Be My Gallows,' which accompanies Lecter's encounter with an Italian police inspector, does the soundtrack include portions of the film's moments of outright horror. Appropriately, Hans Zimmer has created a score steeped in classical influences, particularly Italian opera. for his confrontation with his old nemesis. Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter, is at large, living in Florence, though he eventually returns to the U.S.
A mystery/thriller, The Silence of the Lambs focused on the tense exchanges between a highly intelligent serial killer and a novice FBI agent in an American prison, and Howard Shore's score echoed the film's claustrophobic, subterranean settings.
Hannibal, director Ridley Scott's follow-up to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, is a very different work from its predecessor.