Entertainment website Collider has published an opinion piece by Safwan Azeem listing what it considers the six worst R-rated thrillers released in the 2000s. The article's central argument is that these films had all the right ingredients for gripping suspense — murder investigations, serial-killer psychology, damaged detectives and stories of obsession — but squandered them through weak handling, making tension feel like a chore rather than a thrill.

The two entries detailed in the excerpt are "Twisted" (2004) and "Hannibal Rising" (2007). "Twisted" stars Ashley Judd as a troubled San Francisco homicide inspector whose former lovers keep turning up dead; despite a strong cast including Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia, the piece calls it sedated, joyless and "shockingly bloodless", with its setting and premise underused. "Hannibal Rising" is criticised for turning Hannibal Lecter, played by Gaspard Ulliel, into a revenge-driven origin story that reduces the character's mystery to a "grim origin checklist" and makes him less frightening the more it explains.