Itinerary: Grim Reaper

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark,” wrote the philosopher Francis Bacon. “And as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”

Death. More inevitable than taxes. Freud wrote that “the death drive” was one of human beings’ primary motivators. Even as hospitals and morticians keep the grim details of death at a safe distance, it pervades our cultural lives in the abstract. It hovers over our dramas, tints popular songs with melancholy and leaves its stain on art canvases.

Early British dramatist John Webster wrote in “The Duchess of Malfi”: “I know death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exit.” Exhibits and shows around town this weekend will reveal a few.

Today

The Museum of Death (6340 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Entrance on Ivar Street. Open Sunday-Thursday, noon-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-midnight. $7. [323] 466-8011) has survived its first year in Los Angeles.

Founders Cathee Shultz and J.D. Healy moved their museum to Hollywood Boulevard from a mortuary in San Diego in January 2000, after looking for a bigger space and bigger audience. Now they have more than 2,000 square feet for their macabre collection. Among the items: a re-creation--with original clothes and veils--of 1997 Heaven’s Gate suicides, coffins, body bags, mortician’s tools and paintings by serial killers. The current special exhibit is about the life and suicide (by hanging) of Rozz Williams, the founder of the band Christian Death, which was at the forefront of the goth music scene.

Some things in the museum are very graphic, Shultz said, including photographs of murder scenes and deadly accidents, as well as the stained T-shirt removed from one of the convicts burned in Florida’s infamous electric chair. The museum set a record last month: nine people passed out while touring its exhibits. To make sure visitors know what they’re in for, the museum has a test photo near the entrance. If that’s too much for you, don’t enter unless you want to help break that record in February.

Friday

Ten years after “The Silence of the Lambs” scared moviegoers half to death, the sequel, “Hannibal” (rated R for strong, gruesome violence) is in theaters. Wonder what serial killer Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) has been up to since escaping the grasp of the FBI? Living the high life in Italy, it seems. Restless, he comes out of “retirement” for a game of cat-and-mouse with FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore). Most critics find “Hannibal” more gory but less terrifying than “Silence.” The Times’ Kenneth Turan said it “takes a magisterial approach to the same material, never allowing itself to get down and dirty enough to be truly scary.” Variety’s Todd McCarthy liked it a bit more, writing that Hopkins hasn’t lost a step in “continuing the seductively diabolical portrayal that won him an Oscar 10 years ago.”

Saturday

The always adventuresome Track 16 Gallery (Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building C1, Santa Monica. [310] 264-4678) has organized a new exhibit about police brutality, the prison system and the death penalty. “Capital Art,” on view through March 31, features video, photos, paintings and installations from about 40 artists, including Robbie Conal, Salomon Huerta and John Outerbridge. One installation by artist Dread Scott, “Historic Corrections,” juxtaposes images of an early 20th century lynching, young black and Latino men and an electric chair.