Factual error: In the scene when Will is opening the drawer of films from the Leeds home, there is clearly a copy of Mrs. Doubtfire in the left column of tapes. How can that be? Red Dragon is clearly set "several years" after 1980, as the caption says, but before the 1991 Silence of the Lambs, but "Mrs. Doubtfire" came out in 1993.
Revealing mistake: When Will's wife shoots Dollarhyde at the end, watch closely when she shoots him for a second time and hits him in the cheek. For about one frame, you can see what looks like a wire coming out of his cheek that has caught some light, and about a half-second later, you can see some sort-of small brownish cap hit the floor on the right side of the screen. (It's very tiny so you have to look closely.) These types of effects are usually accomplished by putting a small prosthetic cap attached to a piece of wire over the bullet wound makeup, which is then pulled from off-screen to reveal the "bullet hole." It looks like both the wire and prosthetic cap both managed to get caught in the shot. (Slow motion or freeze-framing help but aren't required - both the wire and the cap are easy to catch once you see them the first time).
Answer: His choices had to do with the layout of peoples' property. At his job, he studied customers' family video tapes that contained scenes of their homes and yards. He looked for seclusion around the properties, easy-access back entrances, whether there was a family dog that would bark, and so on.
raywest ★
But what was his reason for killing them? Was it because he saw a happy family and he was angry because he never had one or because he saw a life that he would never have?
He chose the houses that had big backyards. During the Edward Norton/Lecter interaction, Lector says something about how blood looks in the moonlight.