Ravenous

Ravenous

1999

Director- Antonia Bird

Cast- Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones, Jeremy Davies, John Spencer, Neal McDonough, Joseph Runningfox, David Arquette, Sheila Tousey

            This unique little film gives us a perfect blend of comedy, frontier folk horror, and deranged psychology. Guy Pearce plays Captain Boyd, an Army officer awarded for gallantry in the Mexican-American war. The problem is that he is at heart a coward. In a freak circumstance he consumed blood and it gave him the strength and courage to overcome his enemies.

            He is sent to a fort in the wilderness that serves as a way station for pioneers. The fort is staffed with a motley crue of misfits. A stranger, Ives (played by Robert Carlyle), comes into their midst telling a tell of how, as a part of a group lost travelers, they had turned to cannibalism to survive. Turns out that maybe the cannibalism was not as desperate as he led them to believe. In fact, he is a cannibal who absorbs the strength and spirit of those he eats. The local Native Americans believe that he is possessed by the spirit of Wendigo.

           

   Ives intends to eat all the staff of the fort but also wants to recruit a partner. He knows that Boyd has tasted some of the power and tries to tempt him into further cannibalism. Boyd tries to stop Ives but Ives genuinely seems to have developed super human powers from his eating of people so Boyd is faced with the choice of joining him if he can’t beat him.

            You’ll notice right off the bat it has an awesome cast. Its horror but Jeffery Jones and David Arquette are able to lend it some real humor.  Everyone does a fine job of selling an outlandish story. The musical score in particular is worth noting, which lends a light hearted feel to some gruesome visuals. It’s a very well put together movie with memorable characters.