Primary navigation
Ravenous
USA/UK 1999
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
1847. Following a dishonourable incident in the Mexican-American War, Captain John Boyd is transferred to Fort Spencer, an isolated outpost in the Sierra Nevada mountains commanded by the disillusioned Colonel Hart. Also at Fort Spencer are the drunken Major Knox, the ultra-religious Toffler, keen soldier Reich, peyote-addicted Cleaves, and two Native Americans, George and his sister Martha.
While Cleaves and Martha are off fetching supplies, a stranger stumbles half-dead into the fort. He identifies himself as Colqhoun, survivor of a group of settlers snowbound in a mountain cave. Prompted by the group's leader the settlers had begun eating each other. Colqhoun joined in, but escaped to avoid being eaten. Leaving Knox at the fort, the others go with Colqhoun to the cave, where they realise he had eaten all his companions. Colqhoun stabs Hart and kills Toffler, George and Reich; Boyd jumps off a cliff and breaks his leg. While it heals, he survives by eating the corpse of Reich.
Boyd limps back to the fort, but his story is disbelieved. General Slauson, the area commander, appoints a new CO: Colonel Ives, alias Colqhoun. Alone with Boyd, Ives recounts how, as a former invalid, he regained strength and health through cannibalism, and urges Boyd to adopt the same practice. Boyd attacks him, and is chained up. While Martha is dispatched to fetch Slauson, Knox and Cleaves are killed by Hart, whom Ives had turned into a cannibal. Repentant, Hart frees Boyd, who slits his throat. After a savage battle Boyd lures Ives into a huge bear trap, where they die together.
Review
Ravenous was a troubled production: the original director, Milcho Manchevski, was fired, and Robert Carlyle persuaded (or, according to reports, "practically blackmailed") Antonia Bird, with whom he'd worked on three previous films, to take over. Such events usually herald a turkey, but in this case the end result, though uneven and at times incoherent, has enough ideas going for it (maybe even a few too many) to sustain momentum, helped immeasurably by the headlong frenzy of Bird's direction.
Kicking off with a quotation from Nietzsche, and tossing in references to Benjamin Franklin and Native American myth as it goes, Ravenous makes free with its conceptual reference points. At its heart is the idea of cannibalism as a proselytising movement, eager to attract new blood in more ways than one: gaining strength not only from the victims who are dismembered and eaten, but also from new converts to the creed. The religious parallel is underlined by the Native American George who recounts the legend of the Weendigo, a creature who absorbs the power and very spirit of each person it eats, adding casually, "Like man eats Jesus Christ each Sunday."
There's also a hint at a political subtext, with Ives/Colqhoun musing ironically on the westwards-expanding doctrine of Manifest Destiny, and referring to America as, "a country seeking to be whole, consuming all it can." (In his case it's an even more self-serving doctrine than usual, since he foresees a steady stream of westbound pioneers heading his way to serve as sustenance.) Ted Griffin's script dangles these references as if to lure us into thinking we're watching something serious. But essentially Ravenous is an ingenious period-costume reworking of that reliable old staple the closed-community horror movie, of which Alien (1979) and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) are other variants, though its eat-or-be-eaten theme suggests a sideglance at subversive one-offs like Bob Balaban's Parents (1988) or Brian Yuzna's Society (1989) both of which worked through their ideas more cleverly.
Whether due to script problems or last-minute reshoots, Ravenous comes apart towards the end. An abrupt, unmotivated change of heart by the recent cannibal-convert Colonel Hart is used to slice through a plot crux, after which the showdown between Boyd and Ives degenerates into standard hayforks-in-the-barn mayhem where something far more towering and apocalyptic was needed. Whatever his subsequent misgivings, Carlyle plays Ives with a fine edge of callous relish, though Guy Pearce, terrific as the straight-arrow cop in L.A. Confidential, here can't do much with a role that mostly asks him to react. No doubt conscious of the script's weaknesses, Antonia Bird's typically dynamic camera goes into compensatory overdrive, wheeling and careening and zip-panning in mounting hysteria at every menacing moment. By itself this would be fine, but the hyperactivity is compounded by the contributions of Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn, collaborating on what must be the loudest and most bombastic score since Maurice Jarre pulled out all the stops for Ryan's Daughter.
Credits
- Producers
- Adam Fields
- David Heyman
- Screenplay
- Ted Griffin
- Director of Photography
- Anthony Richmond
- Editor
- Neil Farrell
- Production Designer
- Bryce Perrin
- Music Composers/Performers
- Michael Nyman
- Damon Albarn
- ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
- Production Companies
- Fox 2000 Pictures presents an Adam Fields/Heyday Films production
- Executive Producer
- Tim Van Rellim
- Producer's Associate
- Joseph Boyle
- Production Supervisors
- Petr Moravec
- Mexico Unit:
- Natasha Wellesley
- Production Services, Czeck/Slovak Republics
- Etic
- Production Co-ordinators
- Emma Mager
- Veronika Horká
- Mexico Unit:
- Belinda Uriegas
- 2nd Unit:
- Barbora Jurkovicová
- Production Manager
- Ondrej Sláma
- Unit Managers
- Vladimír Seiml
- 2nd Unit:
- Petr Splichal
- Locations Managers
- Jirí Krejcír
- Mexico Unit:
- Gloria 'Pekas' Lozano
- Post-production
- UK Supervisor:
- Michael Solinger
- UK Co-ordinators:
- Tracey Gibbons
- Jatinderpal Chohan
- Production Consultant
- Mexico:
- Anna Roth
- 2nd Unit Director
- Arthur Wooster
- Assistant Directors
- Jirí Ostry
- Martin Sebík
- Olda Mach
- Mexico Unit:
- Mark Griffiths
- Miguel Lima
- Efren del Moral
- Julian 'Chico' Valdez
- 2nd Unit:
- Jan Mensík
- Robert Zapletal
- Script Supervisors
- Beverley Winston
- 2nd Unit:
- Martina Pálková
- Casting
- Billy Hopkins
- Suzanne Smith
- Kerry Barden
- Mexico Unit:
- Claudia Becker
- Rogelio Rojas
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Ervin Sanders
- Camera Operators
- George Richmond
- Martin Grosup
- Jirí Maxa
- Mexico Unit:
- Colin Scott Corby
- Guillermo Rosas
- 2nd Unit:
- Tim Wooster
- Steadicam Operator
- Mike Bartlett
- Digital Effects
- Peerless Camera Company
- Digital Effects Supervisor:
- Kent Houston
- Digital Effects Producer:
- Susi Roper
- Digital Effects Compositors:
- Steve Cutmore
- Tim Ollive
- John Swinnerton
- Optical Effects:
- David Smith
- Martin Body
- Special Effects
- Supervisor:
- Terry Glass
- Mexico Unit, Supervisor:
- Jesús Duran
- Co-ordinator:
- Jaroslav Stolba
- Floor Supervisor:
- Jirí Väter
- Technicians:
- Dana H. Suddath
- Pavel Sánger
- Roman Tudzaroff Jr
- Martin Oberlander
- Jirí Vojtech
- Andrej Vavrena
- Mexico Unit, Technicians:
- Fermín Duran
- Adrián Duran
- Alejandro Duran
- Antonio Cornejo
- Francisco Cornejo
- Sergio Gomez
- 2nd Unit, Co-ordinator:
- Jirí Väter
- Supervising Art Director
- Karel Vacek
- Art Directors
- Adam O'Neill
- Mexico Unit:
- Ricardo Spinacé
- Set Decorators
- Jirí Zucek
- Mexico Unit:
- Marco Niro
- Draftsmen
- Václav Vohlídal
- David Vondrásek
- Storyboard Artist
- Igor Tosevski
- Costume Designer
- Sheena Napier
- Wardrobe Mistress
- Vera Mírová
- Chief Make-up/Hair Artist
- Fae Hammond
- Additional Make-up/Hair
- Anne 'Nosh' Oldham
- Mexico Unit Make-up
- Raúl Sarmiento
- Mexico Unit Hair
- Francisco Jaramillo
- 2nd Unit Make-up/Hair
- Libuse Barlová
- Prosthetic Effects
- KNB Effects Group
- Prosthetics Artist
- Ivo Strangmüller
- Main Titles Design
- Chris Allies
- Digital Title Effects
- The Computer Film Company
- Digiscope
- Opticals/End Titles
- Studio 51 Opticals
- Scarlet Letters
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Featured Musicians
- Violin:
- Ben Paley
- Guitar/Jew's Harp:
- Tab Hunter
- Banjo:
- Matt Goorney
- Squeeze Box:
- Bing Lyle
- Featured Vocalists
- Milton Quiltman Sahme
- Gail Turcotte
- Choir
- London Voices
- Score Conductor
- Michael Nyman
- Orchestrations
- Michael Nyman
- Gary Carpenter
- Additional Sequence Orchestrations
- Damon Albarn
- Additional Orchestrations/ Programming
- Tom Girling
- Robert Worby
- Music Editors
- Bunny Andrews
- Terry Delsing
- Score Engineers/Mixers
- Austin Ince
- Tom Girling
- LA Sound Supervisor
- John Larsen
- Sound Mixers
- Mark Holding
- Mexico Unit:
- Fernando Cámara
- Re-recording Mixers
- Adrian Rhodes
- Mike Prestwood-Smith
- Re-recording Mixers
- Jim Bolt
- Gerry Lentz
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Roger Mitchell
- Audio Researcher
- Jane Goddard Carter
- Dialogue Supervisor
- Tim Hands
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Tim Hands
- UK Recordist:
- Ted Swanscott
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jack Stew
- Felicity Cottrell
- Recordist:
- Mike Dowson
- Mixer:
- Mike Carter
- Editors:
- Mike Redfern
- Derek Trigg
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Paul Weston
- Armourers
- Frantisek Mésícek
- Mexico Unit:
- Brian Thomas
- Jesus Almontes
- Animals
- Co-ordinator:
- Ota Bares
- Wranglers:
- David Schmidt
- David Korbel
- Head Wrangler
- Mexico Unit:
- José María 'Chico' Hernandez
- Cast
- Guy Pearce
- Captain John Boyd
- Robert Carlyle
- Ives/Colqhoun
- Jeremy Davies
- Toffler
- Jeffrey Jones
- Colonel Hart
- John Spencer
- General Slauson
- Stephen Spinella
- Major Knox
- Neal McDonough
- Reich
- Sheila Tousey
- Martha
- Bill Brochtrup
- Lindus
- Joseph Running Fox
- George
- David Arquette
- Cleaves
- Fernando Becerril
- Gabriel Berthier
- Pedro Altamirano
- Mexican commanders
- Joseph Boyle
- US blonde soldier
- Damián Delgado
- Fernando Manzano
- Mexican sentries
- Alfredo Escobar
- Gerardo Martinez
- soldiers
- David Heyman
- Janus
- Tim Van Rellim
- Mr MacCready
- Miezi Sungu
- Jones
- Abel Woolrich
- Borracho
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- 20th Century Fox (UK)
- 9,056 feet
- 100 minutes 38 seconds
- Dolby
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic