Over the years, spoof movies have earned something of a terrible reputation. Despite movies like Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and Young Frankenstein being considered classic comedies, the genre has seen some truly awful entries in the past couple of decades.
Still, even the most obnoxiously bad spoof movies – Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, for instance – have remained in the public consciousness; even if it's for all the wrong reasons. With that said, it’s strange that Ezio Greggio’s ill-fated horror spoof The Silence of the Hams has all but vanished from the pop culture landscape, quickly fading into obscurity following its 1994 release. Whether you consider the movie a travesty or a guilty pleasure, here are ten things about The Silence of the Hams that you may not have known.
It’s More A Parody Of Psycho Than The Silence Of The Lambs
While the writer, director, and star of The Silence of the Hams, Ezio Greggio, had initially written a spoof script that focused entirely on the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho, Greggio was pressured by his financiers to make the movie more current.
Although Greggio was asked to rewrite the film as a parody of the more recent hit The Silence of the Lambs, the movie is still heavily weighted in favor of Psycho – something that the movie’s deceptive marketing failed to make clear.
It’s Dom DeLuise’s Lowest-Rated Film On Rotten Tomatoes
Boasting a staggering 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Silence of the Hams stands out as perhaps the lowest point in actor Dom DeLuise’s career. While the comedic actor starred in tons of movies – some extremely well-received, some not so much – The Silence of the Hams scored even lower than the likes of Baby Geniuses and Sextette, which are often considered two of his worst ever movies.
In fairness to DeLuise, the actor had already seen success with satirical spoof movies and likely had no reason to think The Silence of the Hams would be any different – but the fact the movie ultimately faded into obscurity is probably a good thing.
It’s Very Much A Product Of Its Time
Part of the problem with most spoof movies is their obnoxious overreliance on pop culture references and current events. Not only do they generally fail to mine laughs from the audience, but they also age extremely poorly, often feeling extremely dated as a result.
While movies like Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs are timeless, however, The Silence of the Lambs includes references to current events of the time – including the presidential ‘race’ between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton – which simply aren’t relevant anymore.
The Movie Is Loaded With Director Cameos
While a lot of big-budget movies tend to populate their casts with a wide variety of cameo appearances from famous actors, The Silence of the Hams switches things up a bit by featuring a whole host of cameos from renowned film directors, despite the movie’s modest budget.
Amongst the featured directors are John Landis, John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Rudy De Luca, and Mel Brooks – with whom Greggio and DeLuise collaborated with frequently.
Actor Martin Balsam Spoofs His Own Role In Psycho
Appearing in several highly regarded films such as 12 Angry Men, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and A Thousand Clowns – which went on to win him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Martin Balsam is a respected actor with an incredibly impressive legacy.
With that said, it’s very strange to see him show up in The Silence of the Hams, in which he plays Detective Martin Balsam. The character is an obvious spoof of his almost identical role in Hitchcock’s Psycho and was sadly also one of Balsam’s final film roles before his passing in 1996.
It’s Never Been Released On DVD Or Blu Ray
Even the most obscure, terrible movies ever made somehow manage to secure themselves a release on DVD – and if they’re lucky even on Blu Ray – but for some reason The Silence of the Hams was never released on either, making it a notoriously hard to find movie.
Your best bet is tracking down a VHS of the movie, but even that isn’t cheap given its obscurity, with copies on Amazon generally selling for around $30.
It’s The Second Movie In Which Dom DeLuise Has Played A Character With Pizza In His Name
Although Dom DeLuise starred in tons of great movies over the course of his career, the actor was often typecast following his many appearances in spoof movies. This is evidenced by the fact that the actor played not one, but two roles in which the word ‘pizza’ was part of his name.
DeLuise played the villain Pizza the Hutt in 1987’s Star Wars spoof Spaceballs, with the character serving as a clear parody of Return of the Jedi’s grotesque alien crime lord Jabba the Hutt. In The Silence of the Lambs, the actor plays Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza, a clear play on the infamous fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
Ezio Greggio Wrote The Movie After Being Told He Resembled Anthony Perkins
A lot of writers tend to have a story about how the inspiration for their latest project suddenly struck them – and more often than not they’re actually fairly interesting. The story of how Ezio Greggio came up with the idea for The Silence of the Hams, however, is slightly less inspiring.
The writer/director/actor reportedly concocted the idea after he was told he looked like Anthony Perkins – who portrayed Norman Bates in Psycho – and the rest, as they say, is history.
Malicious Mel Is Named After Mel Brooks
In perhaps one of the movie’s most redeemable moments, director Mel Brooks cameos as a ‘checkout guest’, though his role is very brief. Strangely enough, however, director Rudy De Luca also has a small role in the movie as a character named Malicious Mel, who is also named after Mel Brooks.
Many of the film’s cast and crew – perhaps most notably Greggio and DeLuise – appear to have a great reverence for Brooks, having collaborated with him on a whole host of different movies over the years.
The Film’s Box Office Performance Remains A Mystery
While it’s not hard to track down the box office performance of most theatrically released movies regardless of their year of release, there’s a big question mark surrounding The Silence of the Ham’s numbers.
The budget appears to have been recorded, costing around $3 million to produce, but most of the movie’s box office numbers have completely vanished. In fact, the only financial figure available for the movie is its UK gross, where it made just over £10,000.