Ravenous

United Kingdom, United States, Czech Republic

1999

101 Min

Color

2.35:1

English

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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PROD Adam Fields, David Heyman

CAST Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, David Arquette, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, John Spencer, Stephen Spinella, Neal McDonough, Joseph Runningfox, Bill Brochtrup, Sheila Tousey, Miezi Sungu

MUSIC Damon Albarn, Michael Nyman

Synopsis

Captain John Boyd receives a promotion after defeating the enemy command in a battle of the Mexican-American War, but because the general realizes it was an act of cowardice that got him there, he is given a backhanded promotion to Fort Spencer, where he is third in command. The others at the fort are two Indians, George and his sister, Martha, who came with the place, Chaplain Toffler, Reich, the soldier; Cleaves, a drugged-up cook; and Knox, who is frequently drunk. When a Scottish stranger named Colquhoun appears and recovers from frostbite almost instantly after being bathed, he tells a story about his party leader, Ives, eating members of the party to survive. As part of their duty, they must go up to the cave where this occurred to see if any have survived. Only Martha, Knox, and Cleaves stay behind. George warns that since Colquhoun admits to eating human flesh, he must be a Wendigo, a ravenous cannibalistic creature. —IMDb

Director

Antonia Bird

Antonia Bird (born 1959) is an English director.
Bird was born in London. She began her career at the Royal Court Theatre before moving to television in the mid 1980s, directing episodes of EastEnders (1985-1986), Casualty (1986-1987), and drama serials like Thin Air (1988) and The Men’s Room (1991). In 1993, Antonia Bird won a Best First Feature award at the Edinburgh International Television Festival and a BAFTA award for the Best Single Drama for Safe. Her first cinema release came with Priest (1994), which was criticized by the Catholic Church.

Bird later directed several films, including Mad Love (1995), Face (1997), Ravenous (1999), and Care (2000).

While noted for her realistic, socially-aware films (she is a great admirer of Ken Loach), Bird’s largest-scale movie to date is 1999’s Ravenous. Starring her frequent collaborator Robert Carlyle, the film started shooting with another director, Milcho Manchevski. When Manchevski suddenly left the production, and… read more

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G.W. Elmer

11Feb11

The Mexican-American War? Cannibalism? Guy Pearce?? What could possibly go wrong with this film? Oh, so much....

Gaviero

9Jul11

British female director, Guy Pierce, Robert Carlyle, music by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, cannibalism on the frontier. What exactly went wrong? It's a bloody (very bloody) masterpiece (though my Dad did ruin it for me by pointing out that the geological give-aways of the Romanian landscape are all wrong and totally different from the rocks of the Colorado mountains - so yeah, that's one thing wrong). www.foec.wordpress.com
G.W. Elmer

10Jul11

Trust me, I'm all about female directors, Pearce, Carlyle, frontier cannibalism, and even the horror/comedy genre. But there is a lot of uneven pacing (and on the contrary to most I feel like it comes from the first half of the film) and a lot of the dark comedy swings and misses. I really like the premise and everyone behind it, but the final product just doesn't sit well with me. Its bloody, but its not a masterpiece to me. Bon appetit.
Brentos

14May12

watch it with the director's audio commentary track, it gives you a feel of EXACTLY what went wrong. The director herself acknowledges everything that caused this film to nosedive and then explains why nothing went in to fixing any of the problems.
G.W. Elmer

14May12

Thanks for pointing that out! Will do next time. Ya never know, I might just like the second viewing.

Edetein

12Jan11

Ravenous is such a criminally underrated horror film. I love the unique score and musical direction of this film. I hope that one country on this planet will release this on Blu-Ray as the american DVD transfer is sub-par.

Kevin T and 2 others like this

davefilkins, TakaAwesome