Rita Kempley

In the last decade alone, movie-makers have raped, murdered and mutilated more women than all the serial killers combined. Worse yet, they went about it and continue to do so with the same sadistic enthusiasm as the monsters they pretend to revile. Directors and writers have skinned “The Silence of the Lambs,” gang-raped “The General’s Daughter,” dissected “From Hell,” disemboweled “Quills” and snuffed women out “8 Millimeter.” Actor Anthony Hopkins is shown after attending a lunch at the Executive Mansion in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, July 19, 2000. Hopkins reprises the role of psychiatrist-turned-psychopath Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in the film “Hannibal,” the sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs,” much of which is being shot in the Richmond Area. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bob Brown) But to hear them tell it, their movies aren’t really bloodthirsty fantasies. They’re statements on censorship, materialism or the media. Truth be told, many are merely tarted-up slasher movies that have oozed into the mainstream. Pictures that would once have played at drive-ins now play in neighborhood theaters, rate multi-million dollar