Ravenous, directed by Antonia Bird, is a bonkers Western horror movie that centers on cannibalism. Second Lieutenant John Boyd (Guy Pearce) returns from the Mexican-American War of 1847 and is honored and promoted to captain for defeating the enemy. But, when a high-ranking general discovers his cowardice in the war, he sends John Boyd to Fort Spencer, an isolated military outpost in the Sierra Nevada, for his next assignment as a third in command. The flashback scenes show how Boyd cowardly played dead on the battlefield and was tossed into a mound of dead bodies, where the blood of one of the dead men entered his mouth. After that, he managed to escape and seize the area previously occupied by the Mexicans in an unexpected and sudden act of bravery. When he gets to Fort Spencer, a genial Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones), the commanding officer, greets him and introduces him to the other officers: a drug addict Private Cleaves (David Arquette), a drunk Major Knox (Stephen Spinella), a native American brother-sister duo named George and Martha, and a straight-faced Private Reich (Neal McDonough). One night, a stranger named Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) shows up at their door half-dead, frostbitten, and hungry, and he tells a story about how he and his fellow travelers got lost in the snow and had to resort to cannibalism when they ran out of food after getting trapped in the cave. Captain Hart and his team, along with Calqhoun, go to the site to check whether anyone’s still alive. However, before they leave, the Native American George informs Hart and Boyd of an ancient myth about how individuals who eat other people gain their strength and develop an insatiable appetite for human flesh.
In one of the most intense scenes in the movie, when the team arrives at the cave, everyone waits outside except for Boyd and Reich, who go in to look for any survivors. They enter a mini cave inside the cave and discover something sinister. The scene is crosscut with the scene where everyone waits outside anxiously for Reich and Boyd’s arrival. The entire sequence is stretched exactly to a point where the suspense reaches its peak, and then all hell breaks loose. The movie has enough twists and turns to keep you riveted until the end. Through cannibalism, the film also criticizes “Manifest Destiny,” a philosophy developed by the Americans in the nineteenth century where they believed that the expansion of the United States throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
The movie’s production was fraught with difficulties. After three weeks of filming, the original director, Milcho Manchevski, was fired, and Antonia Bird came on board as his replacement. Screenwriter Ted Griffith had to make constant changes and rewrites of the screenplay, but fortunately, the movie never reflected any of that on the screen.
Guy Pearce delivers a standout performance in this movie. His character trait of being a coward is skillfully used, making the screenplay more compelling. His character is such a coward that he would rather jump off a cliff than confront his adversary. There is also a very well-orchestrated climactic action scene between two characters that has a clever way of concluding the action, as there is a great deal at stake depending on who dies first, making it a thrilling action sequence.
The film is incredibly atmospheric, owing to the chilly winter setting, which gives it a claustrophobic feel, as well as an ominous and creepy background score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn. With its 100-minute run time, Ravenous guarantees a crazy trip and a few “What the fuck?” moments that every horror fan craves.
Ravenous movie link: IMDB
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