Cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, John Spencer, Stephen Spinella, Neal McDonough, David Arquette
Director: Antonia Bird
Producers: Adam Fields, David Heyman, Tim Van Rellim
Screenplay: Ted Griffin
Cinematography: Anthony Richmond
U.S. Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
At first glance, Ravenous looks like it's going to be an unlikely cross between Dances with Wolves and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover - but that's before it turns into something truly unexpected. Those who enjoy horror movies with an unpredictable trajectory will appreciate what director Antonia Bird (Priest) and writer Ted Griffin do in the first half of Ravenous; the film is rarely satisfied with the obvious. Unfortunately, much of the skill and craft evident during the first hour evaporate during the second, when mayhem and bloodshed supplant legitimate scares and intelligent writing.
Ravenous opens with a quote from Nietzche: "He that fights with monsters should look to himself that he does not become a monster." It's an apt saying for the movie that follows, which essentially offers a twist on the vampire legend. According to the script, there's a Native American myth that states that when a man eats the flesh of another man, he captures the victim's strength and spirit. Thus, like the vampire, who does the same thing by drinking blood, the more the cannibal feasts, the stronger he becomes. And, also like the vampire, the hunger for more cannot be denied.
It's 1847, and the Mexican-American war is raging. Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce), a combat hero, has been posted to a remote Western locale: Fort Spencer. The small group of men there are a diverse and informal lot: the commander, Hart (Jeffrey Jones); the second-in-command, Knox (Stephen Spinella); and regular soldiers Toffler (Jeremy Davies), Reich (Neal McDonough), and Cleaves (David Arquette). Life at Spencer is uneventful until one night when a freezing stranger named Colghoun (Robert Carlyle) arrives. After being nursed back to health, he tells a horrifying tale about an ordeal he endured after his westward-bound group of settlers became lost in a snowstorm and trapped in a mountain cave. When the food ran out, the men started killing and eating one another. Colghoun escaped before the ruthless leader of the expedition, a U.S. army officer named Ives, could finish him off. After hearing this story, Hart gathers his men together to go into the mountains and look for survivors, but neither he nor his subordinates are prepared for what happens when they reach the cave.
Viewing Ravenous is almost like watching two separate movies. The first half is eerie, visually stunning, and oozing atmosphere. There's a particularly striking scene in which a bloody steak on Boyd's plate causes him to flash back on a pile of rotting corpses he had to hide under. The none-too-subtle connection between human flesh and meat sets the table for what is to come. There are also some chilling moments once the soldiers reach Colghoun's cave. It's at that point, however, when the usual cliches of the horror genre take control: blood and gore replace suspense, characters are brutally dispatched, and the protagonist, the dour Boyd, does the kinds of incredibly stupid things that characters in cheap horror films are expected to do. The disappointing second half of Ravenous makes it difficult to recall the worthwhile aspects of the film's early portion.
Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) plays Boyd as a sulky, sullen man who's tired of killing and perhaps life in general. The fact that he has been assigned to a place that "thrives on tedium" is fine with him. This certainly isn't Pearce's best performance, but he's more than adequate for the role. Had the character been better developed, however, the tension during the climax would have been more potent. Robert Carlyle, seen in 1997's surprise hit, The Full Monty, is doing his fourth film with Bird (the previous three being Safe, Priest and Face). As Colghoun, he's given a chance to go way over the top, and he displays a knack for chewing on the scenery. It's almost always fun watching good actors take a turn playing a really nasty villain, and Carlyle's work in Ravenous is no exception.
When Bird introduced this movie for its world premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, she made a point to inform the audience that it was okay to laugh during the picture. Indeed, parts of it are quite funny (intentionally so). But even the undercurrent of macabre humor can't quite save Ravenous from mediocrity. I give Bird credit for her original approach to the subject matter; I only wish she had not found it necessary to lapse into the tired conventions of a familiar genre.
© 1999 James Berardinelli