A sausage and bacon sandwich, please! (Ravenous (DVD))

Member Name: clownfoot

Product:	Ravenous (DVD)
Date:	17/01/08 (320 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The definition of a perfect horror movie!

Disadvantages: Not one to watch while munching on a cinema hotdog!

RAVENOUS

Jamie Oliver once commented that Ravenous 'was an exquisitely pukka dish of rampaging culinary technique!' Gordon Ramsey agreed that the 'moderate application of a thick red sauce over the finest moist chopped liver sent a f***ing shiver down his spine.' Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall goes one step further, proclaiming that the 'knife play puts almost all other master chefs to shame!' Okay, okay, so none of our culinary experts ever actually heaved such compliments upon Antonia Bird's bloody cannibal opus, but if they had moonlighted as film critics when the movie was first released you can just about imagine all three exclaiming that Ravenous is one tasty man-burger of a movie. Probably...

Sent to the isolated Sierra Nevada mountain range for general cowardice, Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) would have expected to live out the remainder of his career at Fort Spencer far away from any potentially life-threatening situations. However, no sooner than you can say 'bacon sandwich', a decimated and starving man named Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) appears from the snowy drifts, a survivor of a wagon trail gone badly wrong. Lost, out of food and sheltered by a remote cave, he explains the murder spree Colonel Ives, the leader of the group, began to partake on his companions as a savage hunger took hold. A rescue mission is ordered by Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones), but everything is not as suggested and the party are ambushed with Boyd left for dead in a ravine with only a broken leg and a corpse for company. With the spirit of Wendigo in the air - an old Indian cannibal myth that reasons if you eat the body of a fellow man you steal both his spirit and strength - Boyd has to deal with his own cannibalistic urges in order to confront and stop the vicious serial killer who is joyously living out an eclectic cannibal lifestyle.

It would be an understatement to say that Ravenous is not for the faint of heart. The subject matter evokes that it's bound to be fairly grizzly, with lots of slicing and dicing and sharp objects par for the course and, in this respect, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Yet dig a little deeper and you begin to recognise that Ravenous is certainly not your atypical horror movie, as it deftly avoids the clichéd gubbins that usually frequent the genre. Whilst the gore is by the bucketload, its predominance is reigned in by the films other stand-out qualities. Indeed, if you can deal with the subject matter, laying in wait for the brave adventurer is a sardonic intelligent script bordering on black comedy, some slick direction, a delightful music score and compelling performances, which all merge seamlessly to make for a splendid breathless ride.

For one thing, when was the last time you watched a truly beautiful horror film? Not for a fair while I bet. With the Czech Republic seconding for the Rockies, the scenery employed makes for a wondrous visual accompaniment for the horror on show. The snow filled landscape is beautifully shot looking like a Turner landscape, and the juxtaposition of pure brilliant white with blood red carcasses has a fascinating artistic contrast. Additionally such an isolated environment provides a fairly unsettling backdrop for events to be portrayed against. Indeed, the villain of the piece is himself crafted by the uncompromising location as much as any lack of morality, and without such refined care and attention to the look of the film the murky, dark atmosphere hidden behind the beauty may have been easily lost.

Of equal merit is the quality of the acting on show. The setting and script are only as good as those who inhibit the characters and get the most out of the story, and its not often you get to see quality 'real' actors appearing in a horror flick. No teenagers here, for which we can thank the monkey Gods! Pearce is understated as the cowardly anti-hero dealing with his own psychological conflict as one that has previously savoured the flesh and in-denial about the immoral power that comes with the taste, showing he is more than a flash in the pan after his acclaimed role in LA Confidential. He deals with the psychological elements with ease and his own incarcerated isolation complements that of the setting, and is in brilliant contrast to Carlyle who, quite simply, steals the show. Indeed, it's down to Carlyle that the film leaps nimbly and unselfconsciously back and forth across the gulf separating humour and horror. Delivering exquisite and tantalising dialogue along the lines of "eat to live, don't live to eat", he seems to thoroughly enjoy himself as Boyd's nemesis. His dry humour effectively makes the more horrific elements more comfortable to savour, not usually an easy balance to strike.

However, what really sets Ravenous apart from the slew of other horror movies is the suspense and build up to the most pivotal scenes. These are often more stomach churning than the gore on show and give the film that much needed visceral impact. From the tense and uncomfortable cave ambush, to Boyd's unexpected leap of faith into a sixty foot ravine (which is a beautifully captured shot) and the "eat or die" showdown whereby Boyd is teased into eating his fellow man to avoid bleeding death, Ravenous is a brilliant composition of slow-burning intensity which keeps you on the edge of your seat. That it's punctuated by some hearty imagery just makes it all the more perfect as the build up has the money shots that then deliver. Seeing the leg bone sticking out through Boyd's shin is nasty, as is viewing one of his fellow misfits from Fort Spencer gutted like a fish. Corpses are hacked up for food, necks slashed with blood pissing up windows and general bloody choking from painful sounding stab wounds, all for the audience's undoubted pleasure. But little compares to the sublime finale involving pitch-forks, cleavers and a variety of other weapons in a final fight between good and evil that ends with perhaps the most brilliantly original blackly, black closing shot to any horror film yet seen.

Hell, even where things shouldn't work, it works. The music composed by Blur's Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman has a modern fun synth feel to it that you'd think would seem out of place, yet fits into the American Civil War period setting almost seamlessly. Ravenous, quite clearly, is one of those movies that sneaks under the radar in the unseen gem bracket because it's cleverly insane and therefore quite difficult to sign-post. Part horror, part black-comedy, part psychological drama, part period drama, it mixes all these elements together into a quite absurd, but brilliantly compelling movie. That the script, direction and acting are superbly realised and don't fall into hackneyed genre definitions, elevates Ravenous further. It's a horror film that is genuinely horrific, doesn't treat its audience as if they've just crawled out of the primordial soup and subsequently deserves to be seen. A quite exceptional little movie!


Overall - Little seen on its original release, mostly because audiences were unaware of its depth (thanks to poor advertising), Ravenous delivers gore by the bucketload, intense imagery, genuine suspense and a foreboding atmosphere. That it then takes the moral taboo of cannibalism further and makes it a deft black comedy is remarkable. Near enough the perfect movie for cooks, is what Jamie Oliver might say!


Director: Antonia Bird

Screenplay: Ted Griffin

Cast:

Guy Pearce ... Capt. John Boyd
Robert Carlyle ... Col. Ives / F.W. Colqhoun
David Arquette ... Pvt. Cleaves
Jeremy Davies ... Pvt. Toffler
Jeffrey Jones ... Col. Hart
John Spencer ... Gen. Slauson
Stephen Spinella ... Knox
Neal McDonough ... Pvt. Reich
Joseph Runningfox ... George (as Joseph Running Fox)
Bill Brochtrup ... Lindus
Sheila Tousey ... Martha

Rating: 18

Running Time: 100 minutes

Genre: Horror/Black Comedy/Thriller


© clownfoot, January 2008.

Summary: Gory and intense cannibal movie with a hint of black comedy!