Ravenous (1999)

Just perfect...

good back-story, and good acting

Boring

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Great and a little insane. I think it's great that a movie like this even got made in the first place. I saw this years ago and revisit it every once in a while. Genre-bending, AMAZING performances, and a soundtrack that's strange but FITS (somehow). Loved the location and the starkness, it's also shot beautifully and the action is clear and easy to follow. Boyd (Guy Pearce) is a unique lead especially given who he is in the beginning of the film and what type of person he is at the end. I recommend it to people that like horror but also want something a little different.

Who says that a film about a disgraced American soldier fighting off a vicious cannibalistic serial killer in the chilly Pacific Northwest mountains couldn't be fun? Rave out is an incredibly unique film, unlike any other because of its buoyantly jovial, tongue in cheek attitude in the face of such grim subject matter. I won't even bother giving my usual rant about it being underrated because honestly, it's a hard sell. The casual moviegoer would be hard pressed to grab it off the shelf and think they're in for a fun Friday night. But they would be. It boasts a wickedly funny, extremely gory horror comedy vibe that's just unbeatable. Guy Pearce is excellent as a soldier who survived and triumphed in the Mexican American war by playing dead and infiltrating his enemies quarters as a corpse. Labelled a coward by his bear of a superior (John Spencer) he finds himself exiled to a snowy mountain outpost, presided over by an unruly band of misfits. It's not long before a mysterious stranger (Robert Carlyle) stumbles out of the night with a horrifying tale of brutal murder and cannibalism, leaving him the sole survivor. The outpost leader organizes a search party to the alleged cave where this takes place, and from there the film takes a gloriously demented detour into a supremely weird, devilishly entertaining fight for survival. The musical score is completely opposite of what the synopsis suggests, a haunting jangly tune that suggest nothing of the outright atrocities to come, making the film all the more memorable. Carlyle is a slippery fiend, nailing a role that's tricky to pull off, with glee and malice at every turn. The always welcome Jeffrey Jones steals the show as the outpost leader, a chatterbox good ol boy who brightens every scene he's in, and old pro Jones takes the wicked funny script and dances circles with it. David Arquette randomly shows up as a peyote loving mountain man, and Jeremy Davies and Neal McDonough have a nice bits too. Whatever problems the director had with the studio is none of my business. I just know I've never seen anything like this delightful flick, and they should be proud no end of how it turned out.

Before watching Ravenous, it probably helps for you to know that the impression of this film given by marketing is inaccurate. It appears to be a horror and a thriller but, while it does contain some guts and suspense, the film is much more than a generic horror. Ravenous has elements of adventure and some black comedy in quirky moments, more so in the first half, and thrills that are more-so concept and emotionally based rather than cheap adrenalin. The point is that it's a bad idea going into this film because you heard it was a picking-off-the-victims "gore-fest".The film begins with events following soon after the Mexican-American War where Second Lieutenant (John) Boyd (Guy Pearce) is struggling after letting his unit down while they are massacred. He stumbled into the Mexican headquarters and, in a bout of bravery, managed to capture enemy command from within. He is haunted by images and flashbacks of the mass of deaths and aggression he has witnessed. Boyd is promoted to Captain for his heroism, but his commanding officer discovers the cowardly truth of this victory. Boyd is exiled to Fort Spencer in the Sierra Nevada. Boyd settles in with 7 interesting residents of Fort Spencer. Soon they're all introduced to a man who shows up in the night weak and injured. He proceeds to explain to them a disturbing account of his group turning to cannibalism having him flee in fear of his life and the Spencer team setting off with him venturing back in obligation to the cave which he has fled to save a woman he admits he has left alone in danger.Apart from the events that take place in the film, the situation John Boyd finds himself in is a reflection of honest morality with a front focus on temptation and the will power not to give in. It is really a matter of opinion whether this is appealing, which is is for me, but it really doesn't hurt for one to open their mind.Ravenous can get you to think if you let it do so.

Terrible over the top acting, Terrible editing, Terrible music .. oh my god the music is just so bad .. let's just pick one bar of music and play it over and over and over again and call it a soundtrack .. and what the heck is with the piercing organ type sound in the music, that's not an instrument, it's a cat being slaughtered, I feel bad for Guy Pierce having to be in it. The story line was just, just bad. It makes me angry that someone gives these people good money to make a movie and you can see that there is a lot of money going into sets, lighting, props and costumes and then you end up with this pathetic movie. How does that even happen. It's almost like they had to intentionally make a bad movie just to annoy their high school movie teacher who told them they would never amount to anything .. I think you should have listened.