Ravenous (1999)

You know, "Ravenous" was a total flop -- all these years later, it's still not even come close to making its budget (maybe 1/6th of the way there). I remember it appearing, and disappearing from theaters almost immediately (I know because it was out one week and I thought "I should go catch this" and delayed and the next thing I knew, it was gone), but the concept of it appealed to me, and I watched it years ago (weird to think that 1999 is now a long time ago, really -- doesn't feel so long ago). Anyway, I think this movie will stand the test of time as a cult classic. Maybe it's not there, yet, maybe it'll languish in near-oblivion for another decade or so, or maybe folks'll see it and appreciate it.

I love this movie. The setting of it (19th century, in the California wilderness, although shot in Slovakia, it really does look COLD there, and that isolation works well), and the nice playing with the Wendigo legend, fusing it with maybe a bit of "Dracula" and notions of Manifest Destiny, and getting good performances out of a number of actors, to say nothing of the marvelous black humor that runs right through this movie -- it's really, really good, and I never get why more people haven't seen it or bothered to catch it. Director Antonia Bird doesn't necessarily shoot thrillingly (although she does convey good atmospheric shots here and there), and there are some continuity errors here and there in it, but overall, the movie doesn't just hold together; it's classic horror, with a bit of a twist here and there.

Guy Pearce plays Captain John Boyd, a reluctant (one might say cowardly -- a theme that runs throughout the movie) war hero who is sent to a distant fort in California, where he runs into the odd group of locals at Fort Spencer, in the Sierra Nevada ranges. There, they encounter Colqhoun (played wonderfully, with beady-eyed intensity, by Robert Carlyle), this stranger with a ghastly tale of cannibalism that is reminiscent of the Donner Party. And things go into freefall soon thereafter. I won't throw any spoilers into this, as the movie has some nice twists and turns. Pearce's Boyd is a fairly introverted, tortured character, and, as far as protagonists go, is fairly weak -- I imagine this turned off audience goers, who might've resonated with a stronger hero -- but Boyd does find his strength as the movie progresses, and understands what he must do to prevail over the Evil he faces. Boyd rises to the occasion (and, again, this might've bothered the audiences who saw it, who likely craved a happier ending).

The movie is well-shot and well-paced, and certain scenes will stay with you forever -- not even from outright bloodshed (certainly, blood is spilled in this movie, but never for its own sake) -- but it's the implications in the carnage here and there, the suggestion of what's going on, that carries the weight, and it makes this a superb, even smart horror movie. Not a slasher film, not an ironic, smarmy meta-horror, and not an exercise in pure terror (thinking of "The Strangers," here) -- "Ravenous" is, instead, a Grade-A horror film that takes you on a grim and haunting excursion. It's not a perfect movie, but it's far, far better than its dismal reception would leave you to believe). I've watched this movie a number of times, and it always manages to rope me in. Something about the setting, the time period, the good characterizations, the villainy of the Bad Guy -- all of it makes for an intoxicating and memorable horror film.

If you haven't seen it (and odds are you haven't, since, again, this movie was a total flop), you owe it to yourself to catch it. So much of what passes for horror these days is basically torture porn, or is an exercise in brutality -- "Ravenous" is, instead, a smart horror movie that has some nice, nasty reversals throughout it, and some curious implications woven within it.