Women's Pictures - Antonia Bird's Ravenous
Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 3:00PM 
What is the difference between a hero and a coward? Where is the moral line between surviving hunger and gratifying gluttony? What was the true nature of manifest destiny? When you think "cannibalism horror flick," you probably don't expect questions like these, but Antonia Bird's 1999 genre-bending Ravenous surprisingly pauses to ask these questions before launching into some spectacularly self-indulgent gore. The result is a veritable smorgasbord of horror tropes and outlandish ideas that make up an unusual horror movie which might not be to everyone's taste.
Guy Pierce, hot off L.A. Confidential, plays John Boyd, a cowardly captain in the American army during the Mexican-American War. He has been decorated for capturing an enemy command after hiding under a pile of dead bodies, though he did so out of fear, not heroism. His superiors send him to a remote outpost in the Sierra Nevadas, Ft. Spencer, which is run by a Colonel (Jeffrey Jones), a drunk (Stephen Spinella), an idiot (David Arquette), a religious nut (Jeremy Davies), a soldier (Neal McDonough), and the two genre-required Native Americans (Sheila Tousey and Joseph Runningfox). When a half-mad priest (Robert Carlyle) appears in the night, telling stories of snowbound starvation and cannibalism, the ragtag group sets out to investigate. What they find is a bloody disaster.
Ravenous refuses to be just one movie. Ted Griffin's script samples from Westerns, gorror, the history of Alfred Packer, supernatural thrillers, action movies, and even black comedy. The result is sometimes disjointed, with a slow first half that suddenly picks up momentum (though not thematic cohesion) in the second half. Antonia Bird's most difficult challenge is to keep all of these disparate parts part of a unified whole, and in this she succeeds through a stellar aesthetic sense of horror. The cinematography is brutally beautiful; the icy blue light shines on white mountains and bare trees. Black-red blood pours from bodies like wine. Meat - be it human or otherwise - is photographed in bloody detail. Equally jarring is a semi-anachronistic score that mixes modern guitar with banjo riffs. It's unsettling and uncomfortable. This is a world where you eat to survive, and you survive to eat.
While crafting this stage, Bird has the good sense to let her actors do what they do best. Robert Carlyle's natural Scottish charisma makes for a fantastic villain against Guy Pearce's stoic, suffering hero. Ives (Carlyle) occasionally veers into delightfully mustache-twirling exposition, as he (and the genre-cliche Magical Native Americans) explain the mythos of the movie: cannibalism turns men into wendigos, super-men who absorb their dinners' vitality, but also creates an everlasting hunger in the wendigo. Myth-building exposition like this is the meat of horror movies, and Carlyle's stylish delivery makes it easy to swallow.
Ravenous aims for epic themes, but they mostly get washed away by buckets of blood. By gore-horror (gorror) standards, this isn't an overly gross film, but casual horror viewers will want to beware. The script draws parallels between Ives's hunger and the darker side of American Manifest Destiny, but those are pushed aside for a third act brawl involving knives, bluntforce trauma, and a giant bear trap. Ultimately, those who want a quick, bloody bite will be satisfied. Those looking for something deeper may find themselves hungry for more.
This month on Women's Pictures: Celebrate Halloween with 5 Women Directors!
10/15 American Psycho (2000) - Is it satire? Is it fantasy? Is it horror? Mary Harron's film about a psychopathic investment banker has been called many things, including a new classic. (Amazon) (Netflix)
10/22 A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) - For those who think vampires are passe, Ana Lily Amirpour's stylish film moves the vampire myth to Iran to become "The First Iranian Vampire Western." (Amazon) (Netflix)
10/29 The Babadook (2014) - If it's in a word, or in a look, you can't escape from first-time feature director Jennifer Kent's The Babadook. (Amazon) (Netflix)
Reader Comments (7)
the idea of Guy Pearce as a cannibal is terrifying because he's always been so emaciated that one fears no amount of flesh-munching would ever satiate him.
i dont understand Antonia Bird's career.
i dont understand Antonia Bird's career.
Hollywood is patriarchal. Less than a handful of women are able to produce a lengthy filmography. She was the replacement director for this movie. It should be argued she salvaged what she could from a sinking ship.
I have never seen this film, but I'm acquainted with Antonia Bird because of her work on the BBC. She directed most recently "The Village" - a very fine series with Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson. She was lucky to be British at least the BBC is more open to female talent.
Anne Marie- I am not usually into gory films, but the cast sounds very good in this film, you always make me think I should watch this.
Lady Edith & Nathaniel - I don't understand Bird's filmography either, but I'm very curious about THE VILLAGE. If you don't like gore, definitely skip RAVENOUS.
Anne Marie - I wonder why you didn't focus on "Priest" ? I haven't seen it since it's release after TIFF, but it won the People's Choice award, and the acting was very good.
Her style was very much a forerunner of the McDonagh brothers films.
@LadyEdith
Anne is focusing on horror movies directed by women for the month of October.
@/3rtful - oops- I forgot about the Halloween angle, obviously Anne Marie is right as usual. :)