The lambs are still screaming. In a newly released trailer for Clarice, it follows FBI agent Clarice Sterling as she helps solve gruesome murders while dealing with demons of her own. The CBS series serves as a sequel to the 1991 horror film The Silence of the Lambs, via Entertainment Weekly.
Released on Sunday, the two minute trailer for the upcoming series references several iconic moments from the Academy-Award winning film. Serving as an in depth sequel, Clarice starts a year after events in the movie takes place.
Directed by Jonathan Demme (Married to the Mob, Philadelphia), the film The Silence of the Lambs was a box office smash when it premiered in 1991. The film starred Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver, The Accused) as FBI trainee Sterling, Anthony Hopkins (Howard’s End) as the imprisoned serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lector, and Ted Levine (The Report) as Buffalo Bill, the murderous monster they’re hunting. It’s only the third film in the history of the Academy Awards to win in all five major categories. It won Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, along with Foster winning Best Actress, Hopkins winning Best Actor, and Demme winning Best Director.
The preview for Clarice paints a picture of southern gothic horror as murder disrupts West Virginia. Now, Sterling is portrayed by actress Rebecca Breed (The Originals), and a year later she’s still recovering from her run in with Buffalo Bill. Adjusting to life as a rookie FBI agent, she’s brought back to her home state of West Virginia to help solve a new crime.
Other characters from the film that are reprised in the trailer include Sterling’s FBI colleague and friend Ardelia Mapp, portrayed in the film by Kasi Lemmons (Harriet) and now played by Devyn Tyler (The Purge). The character Catherine Martin is also being reprised, the victim who survives being held captive by Buffalo Bill thanks to Sterling’s rescue. Brooke Smith (Big Sky) played her in the film and Marnee Carptener (Good Girls) is now portraying her in the series.
The trailer notes that the upcoming series is based on the novel The Silence of the Lambs written by Thomas Harris (Hannibal Rising), as many automatically think of the film. Harris wrote the novel in 1988 and it served as the second novel in a trilogy series. Other novels in the series include 1981’s Red Dragon and 1999’s Hannibal. A series based on Red Dragon was made into the NBC crime thriller Hannibal which ran for three seasons from 2013-2015. It’s available to stream on Netflix.
Clarice will debut for CBS, Thursday, February 11.
Catch the trailer below, accompanied by Grammy award winner Brandi Carlile’s cover of the famous John Denver song “Take me Home, Country Roads”: