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Killer Deal: 'Silence Of The Lambs' Home Hits Market For $300K

If you are dead set on living in a house from one of the creepiest films ever made, there's a killer deal waiting for you in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Located in Perry Township, Fayette County, about an hour outside Pittsburgh, the house that portrayed the home of Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in the 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs is on the market. The asking price is $300,000.

The realtor.com listing calls the 1910 home "a near perfect expression of comfort" and plays up its star power: "An outstanding home, nestled in a quaint village, this 1910 Princess Anne home is a standout[.] Perhaps that is why it was chosen to be featured in the Silence of the Lambs movie."

Right across the site's first photo of the home is the following: "A landmark home...featured in the Silence of the Lambs movie..."

In the film, serial killer Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine, has a dungeon in the basement of the home. He uses it to hold women captive with the ultimate goal of murdering them so he can skin them and make a "woman suit" for himself.

The Academy Award-winning film stars Anthony Hopkins as imprisoned cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as the young FBI agent Clarice Starling.

The house is featured in a very tense and climactic scene toward the end of the film when Starling goes there and Buffalo Bill eerily opens the door to let her in.

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the owners of the house, Scott and Barbara Lloyd, said the film crew shot the scenes in just three days in 1990, but it took a month and a half for production crews to prep the place for shooting.

" 'They were looking for a home in which you entered the front door and had a straight line through,' Barbara Lloyd said. 'They wanted it to look like a spider web, with Buffalo Bill drawing Jodie Foster into the foyer, into the kitchen, then into the basement.' "

The home has one full bath and sits on more than 1.76 acres. It also includes a four-car garage and a wraparound veranda, according to realtor.com. It features "Plentiful outdoor activities from the inground pool, oversized shop/garage, or nearby fishing, hiking and even boating," the listing says.

But what about that dungeon?

SPOILER ALERT: The dungeon that was depicted in the movie was filmed on a soundstage, Scott Lloyd told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

On the bright side, the future owners can make the house mirror the one in the film, although they have a hefty DIY project ahead of them.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Brakkton Booker is a National Desk reporter based in Washington, DC.

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