Weirdhouse Cinema: Ravenous

In this special July 4th episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1999 frontier cannibal horror film “Ravenous,” directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb
and this is Joe McCormick. Today is July the fourth
Independence Day in the United States, as many of our
American listeners can attest to, and I think our international
listeners can also attest to to varying degrees and understand,
national patriotic holidays like this can be really weird to process.

(00:33):
They are at their they're very least a time of
celebrating certain ideals while often ignoring the more complex or
even problematic elements of a nation's history and place in
the world. I often find myself just like, end up
with a day off on the on the fourth, and
I'm just like, what am I doing? What's the game plan?
I guess I'll watch some fireworks and this year I

(00:55):
made some space for today's movie.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Oh, on the fourth of July itself, or just in advance,
like are you going to watch it again on the fourth?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Who knows what I'll do? But I mean, you know,
given publication delights, you know, I couldn't actually watch it
on the fourth, but in anticipation of the fourth.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I see typically if we watch a movie on the
fourth of July, it's Jaws. That's you know, for obvious reasons,
fourth of July is.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
A big holiday.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
In the narrative of Jaws, it's very much a summer movie,
and I don't know, it just kind of feels right,
especially if the day involves, like otherwise being outdoors or
barbecuing or something. At some point you come inside, sit
down and watch Jaws. I think we we haven't really
done this fully in a few years since my daughter
was born, but I don't know, I think we're working
our way back up to it at some point. And

(01:42):
another tradition we used to have. This may sound a
little bit cheesy, but so we used to like read
Walt Whitman out loud in our house on the fourth
of July. It's it's a good thing to do. I
recommend that.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Nice. Nice. So these are both solid, solid choices, especially Jaws,
and because again the greatest primordial summer blockbuster in many respects,
I mean, it's set the blueprint for blockbusters to follow.
But also, you know, Jaws, in its own interesting way
at least dips its toes into some contemplation about America.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
I have to think about that.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Okay, Yeah, I think it's in there. But the picture
that we've selected here is nineteen ninety nine's Ravenous. Of note,
this is only our second nineteen ninety nine film. The
only other film from nineteen ninety nine that we've watched
is Deep Blue Sea, a shark movie.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Oh okay, interesting connection, you know it. Maybe it's not
just the narrative of Jaws that ties into the fourth
of July. There is something very American feeling about the
subgenre of the shark film that's just part of the
national identity. Looking for connections between Deep Blue Sea and Ravenous.
Not a huge amount in terms of I don't know

(02:59):
the fee or content, but I guess they're both very
much about eating.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, Deep Blucy very much feels like a nineteen ninety
nine film. Ravenous in many ways just really feels out
of place, Like it feels like maybe its soul is
more seated I don't know, in the nineteen seventies or
or in a way, it's almost like a blueprint of
things that might come later. And as we'll discuss, I

(03:25):
don't think anybody knew what to do with this film
when it came out in nineteen ninety nine, no one
knew how to market it, and no but and a
lot of people didn't really know how to receive it.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
It is one of those artifacts, like floating outside of time.
It feels like it doesn't really fit in exactly anywhere.
It is a strange. There are strange anachronisms within it,
like this is a period movie set in the eighteen forties,
and something I think especially about the sound track, leans

(03:55):
a little bit into the sound of a nineteenth century music,
you know. It involves like some accordion voicings and banjos
and fiddles and things like that, but also has these
electronic elements that kind of pull it out of the
time space in which you're supposed to be imagining it.
And as a result, it does kind of feel like
this alien object that's just kind of like inserted randomly

(04:19):
into the last one hundred years of culture.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, the soundtrack, the score, especially as we'll discuss, gives
it this kind of vibe of something ancient that is
clawing its way up into the modern world.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
So I originally saw this one back more or less
when it first came out. I did not see it
in the theaters. I don't know how many people actually did.
I caught it on home video, maybe even VHS, I'm
not sure. Probably it was probably DVD. This was a
time when DVD was really getting into the vibe. But
I have to say it really impressed me back then.
I was a rather different person back then, but it

(04:55):
still impressed me when I rewatched it today. I think
it certainly has its flaws, and we'll touch on some
of those, but it's quite exceptional in its rumination on
its central thesis, which it rolls out. I think with
enough care and nuance that it invites us to further
ruminate on what this film means and what it's saying,
without transforming the picture into a kind of blunt instrument

(05:18):
of social or political commentary.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
You know, something about the setting in time and in place,
and the fact that it takes place among kind of
military officers within, you know, a couple of decades of
the US Civil War makes it feel like it should
have some kind of political historical commentary. Whatever political historical

(05:41):
commentary is there feels kind of subtle to me.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah, I would say.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Overall, the main themes are more of a classic morality struggle,
but with Gonzo Freddy Krueger elements.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think it ultimately
strikes a nice balance in its commentary. I do think
if it had been made ten years ago instead of
twenty six years ago, I think it would have been
more aggressive in its critique. I think it might have
been a little blunter. And I don't know it's These
are big what ifs, but I can easily imagine a

(06:16):
picture that was ultimately less successful. So if you're not
familiar with nineteen ninety nine's Ravenous, this is a weird one.
Ravenus is a frontier cannibal movie set in eighteen forties California.
It draws clear inspiration from both the Donner Party and
the confess and the confessions of alleged cannibal Alfred Packer,

(06:40):
And there's also a dash of Windigo of lore from
Algonquin folklore. Now, given this premise, you might well expect
a couple of different possible treatments. You might think, Okay,
this is gonna be an exploitive horror movie. This is
gonna be like a Gonzo maybe even euro cannibal film
we saw in the seventies and eighties, including Cannibal Apocalypse,

(07:03):
which we've covered on Weird House Cinema partially filmed right
over here indicator.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I'd say there are some special effects sequences that are
similar to cannibal Apocalypse. Y. Yeah, there's some kind of
shoving of organs into the mouth.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, they definitely, they definitely get in there and paint
with those brushstrokes. But at the same time, it doesn't
really go overboard there either. I wouldn't say so if
you come into this wanting like a complete gore fest,
it might not deliver, certainly by sort of like fangoria standards.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
At the same time, yeah, you might think, well, this
is about cannibalism, and cannibalism is inherently funny. There's no
denying it. No matter how serious your treatment of cannibalism is,
you can't help but get a yuck in there, you know,
somewhere or another, in part because cannibalism is such a

(07:53):
dark topic. But then there it also there are just
so many potentially humorous wrinkles to the concept.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Cannibalism really lends itself to puns and word play, a
little double on tondras in sentences. Have you noticed that
I feel like almost more than basically anything except sex.
Cannibalism is just like the double on tundras leap out
of the language for you, right.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And then they often go back into sex as well.
So it's just it's all over the place. And so
you might well think, well, this is going to be
a you know, a grizzly comedy, maybe along the lines
of Trey Parker's Cannibal the Musical, which came out in
nineteen ninety three, based in part on the Alfred Packer
account which I just referenced. And it to be clear,
this film does have its intentional laughs, but it also

(08:41):
shows a great deal of restraint here as well.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, there is I would say a good bit of
humor in this movie, but it's way less overt than
in Cannibal the Musical. I mean, this is not in
any sense played for comedy. Instead, it's it's one of
those it's a dark story that is through and through
dark on its face, and I think the viewer is

(09:05):
expected to find little ironic amusements throughout it. You know,
it's like you're having a little chuckle, but there's nothing,
no juicy comedy happening on screen.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, so I think it's generally on the money to
think of Ravenous as a horror film. Absolutely. I'm not
going to make an argument that it doesn't belong in
that section of the video rental store, but I think
when you look at it, yeah, it also tends to
defy categorization in other ways, and I think the studio

(09:36):
clearly didn't know what to make of it. Audiences and
critics also tended to respond as such. I believe Ebert
really liked it, but I think a lot of people
just didn't know what to make of it. No one
really knew what to do with a serious minded cannibal
slash sort of vampire frontier film reflecting on, you know,
to a certain extent, on the dark side of American

(09:58):
destiny and capitalism or at least human nature.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean nothing marketers hate more than something that
takes too many words to describe. Yes, it's just like
hard to market something that doesn't really fit its genre
tropes very well.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, And as such, the original marketing for this film
is just I mostly just hate all of it. I
hate all the posters and box art for it. It
just all of it's just kind of like ugly looking.
I don't like the trailer, and I don't think any
of this has changed. It's weird, Like, this is a
film that has definitely developed its own cult following over
the years, and it's readily available. It's been re released,

(10:36):
you know, in Blu ray and so forth, but the
packaging is still more or less the same. I picked
up the box at Video Drome here in Atlanta, and
it's the recent Shout Factory release, which is very nice
as all these extras that were originally on the DVD release,
And it's the same description the box states quote it's
a recipe for NonStop action and excitement when the inhabitants

(10:58):
of an isolated military post go up against a marauding
band of cannibals in a deadly struggle for survival.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
That doesn't even accurately describe the plot. No, but then
it also gets the tone wrong.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, the tone is totally incorrect here, Like, I
love this film, but it is not a recipe for
NonStop action and excitement.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
It is also it's not that this makes it sound
like it's like a bunch of soldiers having a shootout
with a cannibal gang that attacks them, like it's mad
Max or something.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, or maybe the thing. You know, there's some comparisons
to be made there, but yeah, totally different vibe.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
It's actually closer to the thing than what this makes
it sound like.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, yeah, So my alternate elevator pitch for this would
be cannibalism American style. But even that makes it sound
like it's going to be more of a comedy than
it actually is.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
If I could give it a slightly pretentious elevator pitch,
I'll cite a line from the movie. The characters in
the movie discuss a believe a Benjamin Franklin quote where
they say, eat to live, don't live to eat. Well,
that's an interesting aphorism. This movie explores what that aphorism
means when you have to interrogate the meaning of both

(12:07):
live and eat.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yes, all right, I'm going to skip the trailer since
I've already established that I don't really like it, I
would recommend, I if you've not seen the film, I'd
recommend just going in cold and experiencing it. And you know,
don't even look at the box, don't even look at
the posters. But if you want to watch it on
your own, it is widely available for digital rent and purchase.

(12:30):
The Shout Factory Blu ray is definitely the pick for
physical media. It contains numerous extras, including no fewer than
three commentary tracks. I believe these were on the original release.
This is just that period I believe, for excitement for
regarding disc extras, so they just went all out.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the original release
of this movie on DVD had little like little easter eggs.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
In the menus. Oh yes, something.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
You could like navigate over to and click and would
play like a I don't know, you'd have like a
dancing Robert Carlyle and.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, this is when they did all
of that stuff. And I have to admit I haven't
really gone into the extras on the disc. I feel
like this is sometimes I really like to do that
with a film for a weird house and get more
of the backstory. This, I really feel like, is a
film that just speaks so well for itself as itself.
But you know, sometime down the line, I might really
get into the extras because they look really good. You've

(13:25):
got Carlisle and Bird doing a commentary track. You've got
you know, various other individuals involved in the production, and yeah,
I'm sure it's all really good stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
One thing I would say before we go any further
is that, of course, always on Weird House Cinema, we
end up talking about the plot in some amount of
detail as we go on, and that will include spoilers
for the story. In cases where I think, you know
you might want to go in without anything spoiled, I
throw a warning up. I think this is probably one
of those. This is a movie where you might want

(14:04):
to watch it without any of the surprises ruined. So
fair warning, folks. If you haven't seen the movie you
feel like you want to, this might be a good
place to pause.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
And go check it out before listening further.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
All right, we've given you the warning, So now we're
going to get into the meat of the people involved
in this production, starting at the top. The director here
is Antonia Byrd, who lived nineteen fifty one through twenty
thirteen English TV and film director and also occasional producer.
Her TV credits go back to the early eighties, working

(14:36):
on various series and TV movies, including some work in
the long running series EastEnders. In ninety four, she directed
the film Priest starring Linus Roach, Tom Wilkinson and Robert Carlyle,
which earned her a BAFF denomination among other honors. She
followed this up with nineteen ninety five's Mad Love, no
relation to the Peter Lorie picture. This one starred Chris

(14:57):
O'Donnell and Drew Barrymore. But what if it had been
a remake of Mad Love.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Starring Chris O'Donnell and Chris O'Donnell as.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
In the role of a lifetime in the Peter louri role.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
She also did nineteen ninety seven's Face, a crime drama
starring Robert Carlisle alongside Ray Winston. Ravenous would be her
last feature film, but she continued to work in television,
directing a handful of TV movies and episodes of shows
like I five and Cracker. She was one of the
UK's leading female directors by many estimates. She sadly passed

(15:31):
away following a battle with cancer. Now it is important
to include a brief note about the production here. So
first of all, just incidentally, this movie was filmed primarily
in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, So I think all
of these scenes that are supposed to be the American
Frontier are actually a europe And then the scenes that
take place in Mexico were actually filmed in Mexico.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Bird was apparently a last minute replacement for a different
director of Macedonia and director miltshow Manchewsky and I'm not
sure on the details there ultimately not important, but amid
discussions of who are going to get into who's going
to step in and direct this picture? Now getting down
to the last minute, you know, the cast, everything, all

(16:16):
these expensive pieces are in place, and it's Robert Carlyle
who reportedly suggested that they get Bird based on his
previous work with her.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
It was clearly a good move. You can feel something
about something that is really working in this movie is
a kind of playfulness and a freedom to experiment that
I think you can feel coming from the top, at
least that's my sense in watching it.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, and I believe that's the sense that you get
when you read interview pieces from Carlyle about the picture.
So he had worked with her on episodes of TVs
The Bill Cracker, as well as an anthology series called Screenplay.
The episode that Bird directed was nineteen ninety three episode
titled Safe that centered around homelessness and also feature Aidan

(17:05):
Gillen and Kate Hardy. So yeah, he always he seems
like he always spoke very highly of citing her collaborative
spirit and her onset demeanor. In a nineteen ninety nine
interview with The Guardian that, to be clear, was promoting
this picture, he said the following about power dynamics on productions,
Antonia is very different for most directors in thinking that way.

(17:29):
The more you do in your career and the more
success you get, you can pick and choose. But I've
been confronted with a power thing from directors before, and
that's what makes Antonia refreshing because she doesn't have that.
It's a collaborative thing. It's about trust, and you build
up trust over a period of years, and therefore you
will do anything for each other.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Oh okay, yeah, So if I'm interpreting that right, that
does match the feeling I get from watching the movie
where it is. You get the sense that this is
the kind of production where people were just trying things.
I do something weird and then it's like, oh, that
kind of works, let's go with that. Yeah, Instead of
a director just draconian lee to you know, bossing everybody

(18:09):
around and saying no, I've got a vision, do it
this way.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
And of course all that makes sense when we get
into the cast here in just a minute, because it's
a great cast of character actors and experienced the stage
and screen actors, and so you can really feel it
all come together. Yeah, all right. The screenplay is by
Ted Griffin born nineteen seventy. This was his first produced
feature film script, but he followed it up with two

(18:32):
thousand and one's adaptation of Ocean's Eleven, based on a
previous film from many years back. He also did two
thousand and threes matchtick Men, the twenty ten series Terriers,
twenty eleven's Tower Heist, and twenty ten Solace. He also
got into producing and co produced twenty thirteen's The Wolf
of Wall Street. All right, heading up our cast, top

(18:55):
build is Guy Pierce playing the character Boyd. They we're
in nineteen sixty seven, and I think everybody knows who
Guy Pierce is, big name Australian actor who really broke
into the mainstream with his supporting role in nineteen ninety
seven's La Confidential.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
I would argue Guy Pearce is really playing against type
in this movie. He again and again throughout his career
he plays characters that are very driven, it kind of focused,
competent of people who are always the active party in
the scene, always the agent, And here he plays the
exact opposite, a character whose main vice is cowardice and indecision.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah. I think that's a great read because whether he's
playing heroes or villains, which and he does both terrifically,
it is generally a very driven character, and in this film,
the character is intentionally presented is very passive for much
of the film, resigned to whatever fate has seemingly for
whatever fate has seemingly chosen for him, and you know,

(19:57):
as such, he doesn't even seem to have much agency
at first, and on the whole speaks very little in
the movie.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, it's a weird choice to have a protagonist this way.
He's like, there are multiple scenes where he is an
officer in the military in this film, but he has
like men underneath him who are having to kind of
like give him orders essentially because he's just frozen and
he doesn't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, So, prior to La Confidential, his Australian credits included
the cult favorite drag film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen
of the Desert, alongside Hugo Weaving and Terrence Stamp. So
this film pretty much follows up on the La Confidential
boom and proceeds a string of early two thousand films
Christopher Nolan's Memento in two thousand, of Course, two thousand twos,

(20:43):
The Count of Monte Crisco, two thousand and two's The Time Machine.
Subsequent credits included such films as two thousand and five's
The Proposition, two thousand and eights, The hurt Locker, two
thousand nine's The Road, twenty twelve's Prometheus, twenty thirteen's Iron
Man three, in which he gets to play the chief villain,
twenty sixteen Brimstone. I believe that's another grim sort of

(21:04):
Western frontier picture, twenty seventeen's Alien Covenant, small but memorable
role there. A turn as Scrooge in twenty nineteen's A
Christmas Carol. I haven't seen that, but I'm imagining it
as Peter Wayland as Scrooge, so I hope that wouldn't disappoint.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Dan Aykroyd did nothing but trouble as Scrooge.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
And then oh he's in twenty twenty fours The Shrouds.
That's I believe the latest Cronenberg film. Haven't seen that one.
And he's also in The Brutalist, for which he was
nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I always like Guy Pearson. He is great in this,
but once again, a very different kind of role for him.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
All right, now, coming back to Robert Carlyle. Robert Carlile
plays We're past spoilers at this point, so we can
go in and say that it's kind of a double role.
He plays a character that it's initially identified as with
the name Calhoun, come to know as ives.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
There are a lot of great things about this movie,
but I would say Robert Carlyle is the hub around.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Which the spokes revolve here.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
He is the core of this movie, and he's like
the best thing in it. He is driving this train
and he's driving it right off the tracks and it's great.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
He is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, he really gets to shine here. He gets to
go in various directions. It's in many ways a Dracula
role in all the great ways that it's a Dracula role,
but with all these other layers in place, like he
gets to play a frontier mad man, he gets to
play a cold, pragmatist villain. He gets to be this
kind of embodiment of predatory capitalism and empire. And there

(22:41):
are also subtle homoerotic layers to the character as well.
I don't think those are as pronounced, or at least
they didn't jump out at me as much. But you know,
based on interviews I've seen with Carlile, he does stress
that that it was part of the calculus of the character.
So Carlile is of course a note Scottish actor whose
credits go back to the late eighties, starring in TV

(23:04):
with some small roles before starring in nineteen ninety one's
riff Raft, which earned him earned him a BAF denomination,
and it wasn't long after this that he worked with
byrd Onsafe and then worked with her again on Priest
the same year. Nineteen ninety four. He also appeared in
a supporting role in the Robin Williams film Being Human.
In nineteen ninety six, he appeared in Danny Boyle's Train Spotting,

(23:26):
playing the sadistic Oh It's been a while since I've
seen this. I think the character's name is Begbie. It's
been forever. Yeah, Franco Begbee, I think. And this is
a role he'd reprise in twenty seventeen's T two Trained Spotting.
He followed this up with ninety seven's Face and The
Full Monty And this was another role he'd later reprise
in twenty thirteen The Full Monty TV Project. He was

(23:48):
in ninety nine's Plunkett McClean ninety nine's The World Is
Not Enough. I forgot about this one. But he's a
Bond villain.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Oh, he's the villain of it. I've seen this movie,
but I don't really remember he.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Is either this is Yeah, I'm not a big fan
of this era of Bond pictures. But he either plays
the main villain or the chief henchman.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, The World Is Not Oh? Is this the one with? Yes? Sorry,
just had to look it up.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
She's doctor Christmas Jones.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, I'm I think I saw this, but I maybe
I didn't because I don't really remember any of this.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
I notice it's a forgettable one. It's got a showdown
in a nuclear submarine I think in the end, and
Robert Carlyle is he's a villain called Renard. I had
to look this up to jog my memory. I truly
did not remember any of these details.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Goldie is in it, the UK DJ musician. But yeah,
maybe I haven't seen this one at all.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Well it's not Robert Carlyle's Fault's.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Good no, but you know, more power to him forgetting that.
That Bond villain pay day, let's see that same year, though,
he was in Angela's Ashes, and then in two thousand
he was in the Beach. He played Adolf Hitler in
the two thousand three mini series Hitler The Rise of Evil.
Other credits include two thousand and seven's Aragon and also
twenty eight weeks later from the same year. And he

(25:08):
also played the role of sort of an updated version
of Rumpel Stilskin on TVs Once Upon a Time, which
ran from twenty eleven to twenty eighteen. All right, third
billing for this picture is David Arquette playing the character Cleaves.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Third billing. That's a strange choice.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, I think I guess they were capitalizing on
his sort of like MTV era Scream franchise celebrity status
at the time, but this is a very minimal role,
kind of a mild comic relief stoner character.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
I mean, he's good in his scenes, no offense to
David Arkette at all, but he's more unhinged than I
would have expected David Arquette to get, like his hysterical
laughter at absolutely nothing and also like while he's getting gutted.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, I guess they you know they when they
were marketing and they're like, you liked Scream right, well,
enjoy ravenous because yet at this point Scream one and
two had already come out the same year he starred
and Never Been Kissed. Subsequent films include two thousand and
two's Eight Legged Freaks, two thousand and fours Never Die Alone,
and also twenty fifteen's Bone Tomahawk, which you know is

(26:17):
another weird Western frontier movie.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
I remember having mixed feelings about that one, because I
thought like, in some ways it was well made, but
also it just made me feel so nasty.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, it's it's kind of a kind of a nasty one.
I'm I'm like again, only twenty fifteen, and I'm not
sure it has aged well. But and I haven't gone
back and rewatched it, but I enjoyed the experience when
it came out. You know, Kurt Russell's great and everything
and solid supporting cast in that one as well.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah, who is it?

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Oh Man who plays Richard Jenkins. Richard Jenkins is outstanding
in that.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
He's great in it.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yeah, but I remember that one just being particularly just
mean and vile.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, all right, let's get into the more of the
supporting cast. Here. We have Jeremy Davis playing Toffler. Born
nineteen sixty nine, American actor who the same year was
part of the cast of Saving Private Ryan. He'd already
appeared in ninety six's Twister. Subsequent films included two thousand
and two Secretary as well as Solaris, and he played
Charles Manson in two thousand and fours Helter Skelter that

(27:22):
was a TV film, And he also had roles on
TV's Lost and Justified.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
It's weird to imagine him playing Charles Manson because he
usually played it once again against type there. He usually
plays these kind of quiet, frightened, timid mouse like characters.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, he's a he's like a sweet but weird dude
in this very religious If we haven't mentioned it already.
One of the whole things here is that all of
the people that have been kind of exiled to this
remote outpost in ravenous they are all outcast of one
sort of or another. They have been put here to
be forgotten. This is the ubliette of the American Frontier. Yeah,

(28:05):
all right, And then we have a major supporting character
by the name of Heart, played by Jeffrey Jones born
nineteen forty six. And this one is kind of a
tough one to write about and to bring up here,
because Jones was one of I think the most beloved
weirdo character actors of the eighties and nineties, noted for
roles in such films as eighty four Zama Dais of course,

(28:25):
nineteen eighty six is Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which
he is the principal. He also has a fun villain
role in Howard the Duck. The same year, He's in
eighty eight Beetlejuice, ninety two Stay Tuned, and nineteen ninety
four's ed Wood, in which he played the amazing Chris Well.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
On TV. He had a regular cast role on HBO's Deadwood.
But of course legal problems in two thousand and two
with some really rough charges that I don't even want
to get into here on the podcast, but the info
is readily available on Wikipedia and everywhere else. This essentially
ended his career at any rate. His on screen work
was always terrific, and he's great in this as his

(29:02):
heart is it Colonel Heart. I can't remember. I don't
necessarily remember everybody's military rank. Yeah, but Heart is a
very likable character and it has a very nice, it
perhaps a bit rushed character.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Arc, which sets up a late movie twist that is
I remember back in the day, was like a real
gut punch.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, yeah, and yeah it hit the same way even
though it was knowing it was coming, all right. We
also have General Slawson with great choice of a name
because it sounds like it goes with barbecue, played by
John Spencer, who lived nineteen forty six through two thousand
and five, noted American actor best remembered for his role
as Leo McGarry on TV's The West Wing. Other credits

(29:40):
include eighty three's War Games, eighty nine's Black Rain, nineties
Presumed Innocent, ninety six is the Rock in ninety seven's Copland.
This was his last theatrical appearance.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
I was thinking of this character as General Cole Slawson.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, they do those nicknames. Yeah, he's he's really good
at this. You know, you're authority figure. Everything that you
would ask about that character, it does a good job.
All right. We also we have a return of a
character actor that we previously talked about on the show.
Steven Spinella plays Knox born nineteen fifty six, American actor

(30:15):
of stage, screen, and TV. We previously talked about him
because he was in nineteen ninety five's Virtuosity. He played
the creepy doctor Lindenmeyer.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Is this the guy who ends up he creates SID
six point seven, Yes, the Russell Crow virtual reality murderer,
but then like starts worshiping him.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yes, okay, yes, yeah so yeah, great creepy performance in Virtuosity.
Totally different vibe here is he plays brash, terminally alcoholic,
major knocks. His other main film credits include two thousand
and eight's Milk, twenty tens Rubber, and twenty twelve's Lincoln.
Solid performance here, all right. Then we also have Reich.

(30:56):
This is the character played by Neil McDonough born nineteen
fifty six Stealely American tough guy actor whose first role
was a dock worker in nineteen nineties Dark Man. He
also popped up in ninety six's Star Trek. First Contact
really busted out with a role in two thousand and
one's Band of Brothers, followed by a key role in
two thousand and two's Minority Report, and he got to

(31:16):
play m Bison in the two thousand and nine Street
Fighter movie.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Oh okay, that's the later movie because yeah, for me,
m Bison will always be Roald Julia.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Oh absolutely, Once Raal Julia has played a role, it's
his forever. So mcdoud is good here. It's kind of
a one note role, but it's a good note. Yeah,
all right. And then we have a couple of Native
American actors to round everything out. First we have Joseph
Running Fox playing the character of George born nineteen fifty five,

(31:46):
Native American actor of the Pueblo Nation whose credits go
back to nineteen seventy eight. He played the lead in
the nineteen ninety three Geronimo TV movie, and since Ravenus
has continued to work steadily, appearing in two thousand and
two Skinwalkers, The Navajo Mister, TV's Sons of Anarchy, and
also TV's Dark Wins.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
The character George is the scout who works at the
four Tier, and he is also the character who delivers
the movie's core lower dump.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yes, so a minimal role, but an important one, and
he's good. And then we also have Sheilia Taozi playing Martha.
Born nineteen sixty. She's a monomine and Stockbridge, Munsey Native
American actress whose credits include nineteen ninety two's Thunderheart, nineteen
ninety five's Lord of Illusions, the Clive Barker film. I

(32:34):
don't remember her from that, but that's one I've been
tempted to revisit. In recent years, she pops up on
TV's The X Files. She was in two thousand and
two Skinwalkers and two thousand and fives Into the West.
She was active from about ninety two through two thousand
and five.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Her character's presence is limited, but she does play a
kind of central role in giving one of the core
like moral exhortations in the movie. Especially it's interesting watching
the movie Moll times because you might not fully understand
what she's saying to Guy Pierce's character the first time
you see it, and then it kind of makes more
sense when you know the whole arc of the story.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah. Yeah, Martha and George have important roles in being
the characters who have some degree of understanding of what's
actually happening. They provide a certain wisdom that has thus
far been elusive for the Western characters in the picture.
All right, briefly getting behind the camera here, Anthony B.

(33:32):
Richmond was a cinematographer on this Born nineteen forty two.
His work goes back to the nineteen sixties and includes
such films as seventy three's Don't Look Now and nineteen
seventy six is the Man Who Fell to Earth? Wow. Yeah.
He also worked on ninety two s Candy Man and
ninety five's Tales from the Hood and apparently it's still
working today.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
That's a good resume for a bunch of great looking films.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah. Nicholas Rogue connection there, And you know, I'm not
going to get into the producers, but I think there
is a producer or executive producer perhaps connection to some
Nicholas Rogue pictures as well. Okay, but now look, we
should talk to just a little bit about the score.
In my opinion, Ravenous boasts one of the most original
and effective scores that I can think of, certainly from

(34:14):
this time period, painting a rich sonic tapestry that includes
discordant renditions of patriotic anthems and American frontier banjo music,
some of which I've read was performed by non musicians
that were gathered together for the project. You have tape loops,
you have brooding primal beats, electronic distortion, in addition to

(34:36):
some more traditional movie score flourishes.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
The score is extremely varied. It's all over the place
and all different kinds of genres and textures, and it
comes together quite well.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
This is I would agree with you.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
The score is one of the strongest elements of the movie,
which is overall very strong, and it really stands out
to me. I think the music is fantastic, especially because
there are so many moments where the music it seems
like it doesn't quite fit in one way or another,
like it doesn't fit the time period, or it doesn't
fit the mood of the scene, but then it kind

(35:13):
of does, like it just continues and then it resolves
and reaches this state where it does feel right in
a way that it kind of rewards your earlier trust
in this tension created between sound and picture, and I
don't know, it's a very interesting feeling that it creates
in the film. And this is one that I would

(35:35):
like to have music from this movie just on a record.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, it's this. It was released on CD, and I
know that I either had the CD or some MP
three's ripped from the CD back in the day, But
as of this recording, I don't think it's available to
stream anywhere aside from YouTube, as you know, probably a
user upload a situation, and as far as I can tell,
has never been released on vinyl. It seems like this
would be a no brainer for a really cool like

(36:00):
blood red vinyl release, but I don't know how the
rights for those sorts of things work. Apparently the music
here was so the music here is a joint composition
of two different musicians, though it's sometimes a tangled web
to try to figure out which one did what. Apparently
it was ultimately like a sixty forty split, and the
credit order depends on whether you're looking at the film

(36:20):
or the published album. But the two gentlemen involved here
are Damon Alburn and Michael Nyman. Damon Alburn born nineteen
sixty eight is, of course the illustrious English musician best
known for his work with the British band Blur, who
had a string of hits that I mostly know from
their inclusion in various DJ mixes from the nineties. But

(36:42):
then he would go on to be the key creative
force and lead vocalist on the Guerrillas project. I believe
his only other film score or soundtrack work is a
two thousand and one film called one Oh one Reykivic.
That's another collaboration, So really not much that's directly oriented
outside of that and ravenous, but he's worked in all

(37:03):
manner of musical projects, including things like operas, throughout the
course of his career. Yeah, if nothing else, you're familiar
with Gorillas, and yeah, his work is fabulous.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
There are actually moments in the movie where I don't
know if he's using exactly the same electronic instruments or voicings,
but there are moments where I hear bits of the
first Gorillas album. Oh like there's a kind of electronic
piano tone used in a loop throughout the hit their
hit Clint Eastwood that I hear that same tone in

(37:34):
the soundtrack here, and there's just stuff like that that
feels very familiar to Gorilla's fans.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Oh yeah, that would make sense now. As for Michael
Nyman born nineteen forty four, English composer, pianist, filmmaker as
well in his own right. His best received scores in
addition to this one include his work on nineteen eighty
nine's To Cook the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,
nineteen ninety eight's Gatica, two thousand's The End of the Affair,
twenty fourteen's The Piano. His other scores include nineteen ninety

(38:03):
one's Prospero's Books, ninety four is mesmer In nineteen ninety
six is the Ogre? All right?

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Is it time to talk about the plot?

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yes, let's do so. Okay.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
We get a couple of epigraphs right at the start.
One is a quote attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche that says
he that fights with monsters should look to it that
he himself does not become a monster. The relationship of
that to the plot will become apparent as we talk more.
And then you get a second quote that comes in,
which is attributed to anonymous and it is eat me.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
This.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
I like this, but this also maybe feels like a
late studio attempt to sort of try and control how
people are going to consume this picture. But I don't
know exactly whose choice this was. I don't know it
still works.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Is this the chef coming out and telling you how
to eat your food?

Speaker 4 (39:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (39:05):
But overall I love this because we're instantly hit with
that squeaky, perhaps non musician frontier band rendition of the
American patriotic song Hail Columbia, which sounds fabulous here, but
when you look up the lyrics it's pretty it fits

(39:26):
pretty well to what we're about to see. Hail Columbia,
Happy Land, Hail Ye Heroes, heaven born band who fought
and bled in Freedom's cause, Who fought and bled in
Freedom's cause.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
So we start with, of course, that kind of music,
it's patriotic, military marching band kind of music. And we
see a waving American flag and that with fewer stars
though than the flag.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
You're used to, because this is the eighteen forties.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
And then we see a banquet hall with a long table,
bunch of place settings, patriotic regalia and it's lined by
officers in full uniform, so this is some kind of ceremony.
And we hear a voice saying for heroism beyond the
call of duty, for successfully infiltrating the enemy's ranks and
securing victory independently with cunning and honor. And we see

(40:14):
Guy Pierce here in uniform as Captain John Boyd, and
he is ready to receive a medal for his meritorious service.
We also get a glimpse of John Spencer as the
general presiding over this ceremony. This is General Slawson, and
then we cut back to Boyd looking kind of uneasy
as we get a sudden flashback to the midst of battle,

(40:35):
so we see him in a very different place. There's
gunshots ringing out on this hillside, smoke everywhere. This is
supposed to be the Mexican American War, so it's a
Mexican kind of landscape. And then Guy Pearce is kind
of falling to his knees in the middle of the
battlefield as if his strength has left him, and of
course we get a title telling us it's the Mexican

(40:56):
American War.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
The year is eighteen forty seven.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Kaplin says a blessing, and then all of the officers
here at this banquet sit down at their places at
the long table, and they dig in and the meal
appears to be steak and nothing else, not even a
little salad, baked potato, some cream, spinach, nothing. But of
course then I remember that this film takes place before

(41:20):
vegetables were invented.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
I was reminded of that in this of a later
film two thousand and sevens There Will be Blood, in
which Daniel day Lewis's character Daniel Plainview, at one point
he's in a restaurant with his son and he orders
quote two steaks, a whiskey, and water for him, And
we never get to actually see that meal. But I
always I had a false memory that I had seen it,

(41:44):
because I just imagine it coming out just like that,
just two steaks, no vegetables, one glass of whiskey, one
glass of water. Though I believe there is a later
key scene in which plain View is enjoying a plate
of just steak.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
I mean, I don't know steak, how steak how worked
back then, maybe that was a more normal kind of
meal to eat, but I no, I have to imagine
even back then people would probably want some more variety.
You want some some starch, some sides, some vegetables, something
in there, like just a plate of steak.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
The last time I went to a like certified steak
restaurant before I gave up steak, I do remember it
being a situation where you order the steak and then
you have to pay extra for anything else, any sides,
which kind of I mean, I guess the idea is
that that's just how it's priced out and all. Maybe
that's tradition, but it also kind of felt like like, oh,
if you want to get anything in addition to the meat,

(42:35):
you better pay for it. If you're paying extra for that, buddy,
the steak stands alone. Yeah, I think that it sort.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Of makes sense, like because you can choose, Like you
get to pick your sides all the carts, so you
pick your favorite. So it's not just like you know, oh,
this is what comes with it. But but yeah, I
see what you're saying there. You know, the cream spinach
is the classic steakhouse side. I feel like at least
in that I don't know how far back that tradition goes,
but I think even in the eighteen forties, you got

(43:03):
to give him some cream spinach or something.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
In this case, they were not able to requisition some
cream spinach for the troops.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
So everybody noisily digs into their steak and nothing else,
and you can really just hear them making sounds, like
the movie plays up the disgustingness of the eating noises,
and it's like nom nam. And as this happens, Boyd
is sitting there the only person not eating. All his

(43:30):
peers are shoveling the meat into their mouths, and you
can see him feeling anxiety, like his breathing is shallow,
and he's looking around nervously. And then they also show
Boyd's plate.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
Which looks disgusting.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
It's got this gross looking gray cut of I think
this is beef shank, which also is confusing because that
is not typically prepared as a steak that's going to
be tough as rubber. If you need shank, you have
to cook it a long time, like in a stew
or something. So it's just like a steak of beef
shank sitting in a puddle of juice that has clearly

(44:03):
been modified to look less like regular steak juices and
more like fresh red blood.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
It looks like thick and bright red.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Here Boyd has another flashback to battle, this time too
lying pinned down on the ground in a pile of
dead bodies, covered in blood, gasping for breath, and eventually
the association overwhelms him. He bolts up, gets up from
the banquet table, runs outside, and vomits. And then we
get the title ravenous.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, and I think this is where that unsettling banjo
music begins to kick in a ditty that will continue
to hear over and over again throughout the picture. So really,
in every key moment in the film, the music is
right there, amping everything up and at times like subtly
twisting your expectations. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
So the next thing we see is John Spencer as
the General, giving Boyd a real dressing down.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
In private.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
He tells Boyd that he is not actually a hero
and he wants him as far away from his company
as possible. So Boyd is sent away on a new
assignment to a remote frontier fort in California called Fort Spencer,
and we see Boyd in a few little scenes making
his journey across a background of these huge, black, snow

(45:17):
covered mountains. I think these are supposed to be the
Sierra Nevadas and millions of acres of dark green forest
just this wild landscape. So Fort Spencer is sparsely occupied.
It's this outpost in a meadow in view of the mountains,
built mostly of wood, surrounded by palisade wall, and the
accommodations are pretty grungy. Boyd gets shown his quarters. He

(45:40):
sort of like tests the give of the bedroll and
then looks at it, looks at himself in this dim
spotted mirror. In this sequence, we also briefly meet the
character Martha played by Shila Tauci, and this is a
Native American woman who works at the fort and she
brings boyds and blankets here. Eventually, Boyd has to go
for a meeting with the commander of the fort, Colonel Hart,

(46:03):
who is at least at first portrayed as kindly, mild
mannered and a bit odd. We see him dressed up
with a large blanket or cloak kind of covering his uniform,
and he's often like this when we see him.

Speaker 4 (46:17):
He's got something kind.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Of draped over him that just turns him into a
kind of mass, and he's wearing what looks like two
different pairs of eyeglasses at the same time, one set
up on the bridge of his nose and another down
near the tip. I guess for reading. I don't understand
if that was like a thing people commonly did back then.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Or but I don't know. I haven't caught myself doing
that with my own reading glasses.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Yet it does contribute to making him seem kind of odd.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Well, no, I have to back that up. I do
frequently find myself painting miniatures with a pair of reading
glasses and my magnification loops, so I have essentially done
this a time or two. So maybe that's what's up.
As we learn like his passion is reading various texts,
reading books in their original language, so who knows. Sometimes

(47:07):
maybe he has to really bust up the optics in
order to handle certain font sizes.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yeah, so when BOYD gets in, he's like trying to
frustratedly pry into a walnut with a knife and this
is unsuccessful. So he's telling Boyd about what you were
talking about, how he fights the boredom of the outpost
by reading these old texts in the original languages. And
then he goes and gets this giant leather bound book
from the shelf and uses it to smash his walnuts open.

(47:34):
I wonder if there's a kind of implied joke here that,
like he tells himself the way he fights the frontier
boredom is through reading these ancient tomes, but really the
way he fights the boredom is through eating.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yeah, yeah, possibly it's there's a strong time enough at
last vibe to this character, you know, h like he
is like everyone here. He's an outcast, but he's found
the place where he can mostly just set around and read.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Hart asks Boyd if he has a hobby, and Boyd
says swimming. Probably not much opportunity for swimming here in
the mountains. Heart explains a bit about the history of
the ford. It was originally a Spanish mission. Now it
serves as a way station for travelers moving through the
Sierra Nevadas, and he says, of course, there are very
few travelers in the winter, so the fort only has

(48:23):
minimal staff for the season. And then we get a
brief introduction to each of them. There's private Toffler who
is very religious. This is Jeremy Davies. We see him
praying before meals and like heaving wooden crosses up to
the sky. He's also in many scenes trying to compose
a hymn. You can see him working on the melody
and the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
It's not coming together.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
We see Major Knox played by Steven Spinilla, who likes
to drink. That's his main character trait. He likes the
whiskey bottle. He used to be a veterinarian, so he
is the fort's medic. We see Private Reich played by
Neil McDonough, who is the tough guy, and there's this
brief flash of him standing naked up to the waist
in a mountain stream, surrounded by snow, and he's just

(49:05):
screaming and flexing his muscles.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah yeah, this is some troubled masculinity here.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
I am hard man.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
And then of course there's George played by Joseph Running Fox,
who is Martha's brother. He's a Washo scout. And then
there is Private Cleaves played by David Arquette. Hart calls
him the over medicated Private Cleaves. He likes drugs and
he's the cook. We get a short little dinner scene
with everyone assembled. The vibes are pretty cursed, especially since

(49:37):
Cleves is like seized with crazy laughter at apparently nothing
the whole time. And then we get some more of
Boyd's backstory. We like flashback to what happened during the war,
and we learned the truth. The truth was Boyd was
in the middle of battle and he became so terrified
that he froze, and he just laid down on the

(50:00):
field and pretended to be dead while his men were
slaughtered all around him. And then after the battle was over,
the enemy came and collected the bodies from the field
and put them in a cart. Boyd was at the
bottom of the cart with the blood of his commanding
officer running down his face and into his mouth. Then
he says, after this he had a change of heart.

(50:20):
Something came over him while he was lying at the
bottom of that cart, and he regained his courage, and
he sprung from the pile of bodies, and he single
handedly captured the enemy command And this was the act
that won him his commendation for heroism. But when General
Slawson found out that this whole thing started with the
dreadful act of cowardice playing dead on the battlefield, he

(50:42):
decided to punish Boyd by.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
Sending him out here to California.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
So back in the present, it is winter time, snow
is falling, and Heart sends Cleaves and Martha out on
a journey to the nearest trading post to get the
stuff you need salt, pork and flour and all that.
And it's going to be a three day journey. So
it's only the rest of the crew there left at
the fort, and while they're gone, we see Heart and
Boyd bonding sharing some bourbon. There's an interesting little moment

(51:09):
where Heart talks about how he wanted to escape the
world by coming here, but now he wants to escape
this place. Quote frightening thing about escape is the chance
you might end up someplace worse. I don't know if
this is one of the major themes of the movie.
I have to think about it, but it is a
little interesting in the context of the story, that the

(51:29):
observation that we can be deceived into thinking that everything
would be better if we could just change some particular
set of external circumstances, like where we are, what our
job is, or what we're doing, or something like that,
but that sometimes, maybe sometimes that is really the problem,
but a lot of times it's not. Sometimes you manage
that change and discover that wasn't actually the problem, and

(51:51):
your new circumstance is not actually the solution. The new
circumstance is something you once again desire to escape.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that idea does weave itself rather
nicely through many aspects of the plot.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
But this moment is suddenly interrupted by a boo scare outside.
Through a frosted window, Boyd sees a figure in black
looking in at them from the cold. So the soldiers
run outside and they find a man collapsed in the snow,
apparently dying of hypothermia, and they bring him inside and
they're able to warm.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Him up and save his life.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
The next day, the man wakes up and he looks
to me surprisingly healthy. He introduces himself as F. W. Colhoun,
servant of God, and he's I don't know, like you
get to look at him, and like he looks like
pretty well fed, Like he looks like he's doing great.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
He's worth noting to hear that both Calhoun and Boyd
they both kind of look like Jesus, you know. They're
both shaggy, long hair and either a beard or a goate.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
So Calhoun explains that he had been stuck in the
mountains for three months before he found the fort three
months without food, and heart is incredulous at this, but
Colhoun clarifies. He says, I said three months without food,
not three months with nothing to eat.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, and he's going to explain. But you also get
the idea here that that's all he really needed to say,
Like everyone knows what he means by that. Everyone's familiar
with the idea of survival cannibalism.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
So here Colhoun launches into his backstory and he gives
a whole monologue. I'm not going to quote the entire
thing here, but basically he tells a story of how
he was part of a traveling party with five other
people and there was a guide. They had, a military
man named Colonel Ives, who he calls a detestable man,

(53:46):
a disastrous guide, who professed to know a new, shorter
route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But in fact, it
turns out they took the route and then they got
stuck in a snowstorm in the winter, and they were
stuck in a cave and they couldn't get out. This,
of course, mirrors real incidents in history, like the quote

(54:07):
shortcut that was taken by the members of the Donner Party.
This was a path that others had taken in the past,
but basically the Donner Party, when they took a different
path through the Sierra Nevadas, got delayed and then got
stuck up in the mountains in the winter. So he
describes them getting stuck in this cave, and then Calhoun says, quote,
we had run out of food. We ate the oxen,

(54:28):
all of the horses, even my own dog, and that
lasted us about a month. After that, we turned to
our belts, shoes, any roots we could dig up, but
you know, there's no real nourishment in those. We remained famished.
The day that Jones died, I was out collecting wood.
He had expired from malnourishment, and when I returned, the

(54:49):
others were cooking his legs for dinner. Would I have
stopped it had I been there, I don't know, but
I must say when I stepped inside that cave the
smell of meat cooking, I thanked the Lord. I thanked
the Lord, and then things got out of hand. And
he goes and he goes on to describe how he

(55:12):
you know, only ate you know, the meat from the
people who had died naturally, and he ate sparingly. But
the others something changed in them, something came over them
and they had to eat.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Especially Ives.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
Ives became insane and he just kept killing other people
from the cave so he could eat them. And at
last Calhoun says that his courage failed him and he
fled the cave and he wandered out and eventually came
across this fort. But the way the story trails off,
it is alleged here that Colonel Ives is still alive

(55:49):
up in the cave with at least one other person,
innocent person stuck up there with him, a woman named McCready.
Is she still alive as far as Calhoun knows, possibly
she is. So Heart decides, based on the story that
they immediately have to send out a rescue party.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah, nobody really wants to go, but Heart is you know,
he's dedicated to what is right here, and he says,
it's our job, it's our job. We have to do it.
There's no choice.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
So everybody's getting ready to leave. But George comes up
to Heart and Boyd and stops them to warn them
about something. And it's based on Calhoun's story what he
wants to warn them about is the wind to go
being spoken of by some of.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
The people of the north.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
In reality, I believe the Windigo legend comes from Algonquin folklore,
which would have been further north and east. But here
George explains and Heart translates for Boyd. The gist of
it is a man eats another's flesh, usually the flesh
of an enemy, and in doing so he steals the

(57:01):
man's strength, his essence, his spirit, His hunger becomes insatiable.
The more he eats, the more he wants to and
the more he eats, the stronger he becomes. And Heart
is like, George, people don't still do that, do they?
And George responds by telling him that white man eats
the body of Jesus Christ every Sunday.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Yeah, And he flips the the hide that he's been
reading this sof ofv and it has Christian iconography on
the other side. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
It's a nice moment.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
So the party sets out on the rescue mission. The
party is Heart, Boyd, Reich, Toffler, George, and the stranger Colhoun.
They pack up provisions, they bundle up, and they head
into the mountains. And so we get a little montage
of their journey. I like one little moment on the
journey where Colhoun helps Toffler find a rhyme when he's
composing as him like, he says, he ends a line

(57:55):
with the word servant, and he's going like lervent deervant,
and Calhoun is like fervent, And Toffler is very very
helped by this. He's appreciative. But anyway, they are making
their way along through the mountains, and at one point
they stop in this high mountain pass in the snow,

(58:18):
and Boyd kind of questions Colhoun. He's clearly he's curious.
He says, when you ate the flesh of the man, afterwards,
you said your hunger was different, more wanton. Did you
feel physically different, stronger? And Colhoun kind of mildly says,
I seem to recall something like that, feeling some kind

(58:38):
of virility. He's being very reticent about it now, but
this will become funnier in retrospect. Also, I just have
to comment on everybody's nineteenth century sunglasses.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Here.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
They've all these shaded goggles of various kinds that look like,
I don't know, they look like vin Diesel and pitch black.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, Carlisle here reminds me a little bit of Kurt
Russell and the thing actually with the sunglasses and to
a certain extent with the hat. He does not have
the full hat situation going on.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
But still so somewhere in here Toffler falls down and
gets injured, and so he's got like a bloody wound
that they have to bandage up. And later that night,
after Toffler's injury, everybody's asleep in their tent when suddenly
Toffler comes away can he starts screaming, and it's dark
and you can't see what's happening. But then somebody lights

(59:31):
a lamp and Toffler is backed up against one side
of the tent, terrified, and on the other side of
the tent is Calhoun, looking pale and kind of crazed
with blood on his lips. And Toffler says he was
licking me. And this is interesting because rob if you
know what I mean, Robert Carlisle plays Calhoun very straightforwardly

(59:58):
before this, like there's nothing to indicate really that they
would should have any concern about him. He seems like
a wronged, victimized man who is frightened and in search
of justice, Like there's nothing about him that reads as abnormal,
but that starts falling apart on this journey. So Calhoun

(01:00:20):
pleads with hard On the others. He's apologizing. He says
he was having a nightmare and then he woke up
to find himself crouched over Toffler licking the wound, and
then he asks them to restrain.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Him for the rest of the journey. So they do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
They tie his hands, and then the next day they
come to the cave, the cave where there should be
ives and missus McCready and I still have strong memories
of how freaky this scene was the first time I
saw it, Such a powerful sense of unease and menace

(01:00:54):
and things just steadily becoming weirder and more chaotic by
the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah. Yeah, the editing is superb here. The music is
incredible building that tension. We get these kind of like
rumbling rhythmic beats, like there's some primal force welling up
through the whole situation.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
And so as they approach the cave, Calhoun, who had
been again, he was fairly composed and sympathetic at first,
I mean, frightened, but that's all he starts acting increasingly erratic,
not just afraid, but like quaking and moving his body
in bizarre ways and making these weird little like yipping
and whimpering noises again at first like he's afraid, but

(01:01:38):
then just more and more weird, like some kind of
trapped wolverine that's tipping from fear into a kind of
threatening playfulness. And so Reike and Boyd go into the
cave to investigate, and everybody else waits outside, And in
this scene, Reich makes his contempt for Boyd clear while

(01:01:58):
they're searching, like obviously he views Boyd as gutless and
unworthy of command. And inside the cave they find some
kind of pit, like a natural ubliet, and they go
down and investigate this, and what they find inside is
too many skeletons, too many skeletons to magic Colhoun's story,

(01:02:19):
And the piles of clothes inside include a military uniform.
So if the colonel ives of the story was not
the eater and was instead eaten, who was the eater?
And then the guys inside the cave are like, oh no,
and they scream it's a trap.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
And this whole cave. To drive this home, this is
This is like a wonderful like cannibal cavern situation. We're
right out of an episode of Tales from the Crypt.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Disgusting.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Yeah, the skeletons all have this kind of melted fat
looking thing over them, like they look they're kind of waxy.
It's really gross. And then so Boyd and Reich rush
back outside, but Colhoun is already on the attack. He
first he starts frantically digging in the dirt outside the
cave and he digs up a knife. He attacks and

(01:03:08):
stabs heart. A heart lays on the ground dying. He
shoots George, and then he chases Toffler out into the woods.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
And this is where I was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Saying, Calhoun, he gets into full like late sequel Freddy
Krueger mode. He is having fun, Like he tries to
shoot Toffler but the gun jams and he goes that
is so annoying. And then he's like playing with him.
He's brandishing the knife at him and kind of dancing
and he says run run. So the chase breaks out

(01:03:38):
and interesting music choices here once again. The music at
first in this chase is not like a threatening dissonant jabs.
It's not minor key chase music. It's a hodown. It's
like a lively, upbeat major key fiddle and banjo music.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Yeah, yeah, you don't expect it to go with this direction,
but it, you know, looking at it, this was the
obvious choice. Like it breaks the tension and we get
to go in a different direction here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
So Boyd and Reike run after them again, even though
Boyd is the officer and Reich is the private. Reich
is giving all the orders and Boyd is lagging behind,
barely complying. They find Toffler's body disemboweled. Colhoun is a
bit like Jason vorhees here, seemingly disappearing and reappearing through
the woods, kind of an arcane trickster. At one point

(01:04:29):
here Boyd tries to chicken out. He's like, I'm going back,
I've got to go back, but Reike kind of bullies
him into staying. Reike is killed by Calhoun with a
knife to the chest and he falls off a cliff.
Boyd panics, and then to escape Colhoun, he jumps.

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Off the cliff.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
He survives the fall, but he falls into a bunch
of trees, breaks his leg, and then tumbles along with
Reich's body into a hidden pit in the earth covered
by pine branches, and then he falls down in there
along with Reich's body, and time begins to pass. So
we get a little montage showing kind of I don't know,

(01:05:08):
maybe days going by, and we see Colhoun transformed into
a free roaming master of the wilderness. Now he's just
sitting on a shoal of pebbles in the middle of
a river, eating lustily from a big joint of human meat.
And then later he's skipping rocks in the stream with
his shirt covered in blood and blood all in his beard.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Yeah, just loving life.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
At this point, back in the pit, BOYD sets his bone. Yeah,
so warning folks, there is a self bone setting scene
in the film. And it seems like he's clearly done
for unless he could get some nourishment. And there's Reich
right there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
And I love right how Right's body is presented here.
Reich has like just wide open dead eyes, like just
continuing to judge him for his cowardice.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
These horrible cloudy eyes, but this horrible, huge grin, this
dead rictus, and he's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Covered in dried, like blackened blood.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Yeah, And it's interesting to see how Boyd works his
way up to it like it starts with him taking
Reke's coat off his body because he's cold.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
He's like, can I borrow this?

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
You don't need it, and then he's like, well, I
already took the coat, and he gets the knife, and
it's mostly implied what he does next, But sometime later
we see Boyd emerge from the pit somehow healed, like
he's good, he's all right enough to walk, and he
makes the track back to the fort. When he arrives,

(01:06:36):
he's received and taken in by Martha and Cleaves, who
have returned from their trip, and knocks who was passed
out drunk the whole time there while everybody else was
doing the things in the previous scenes. So there's a
scene here where Boyd goes to Martha. Now he's clearly
he's turned on to the idea of the Wind to Go,
and he goes to her to ask if she knows

(01:06:57):
anything about it, can it be stopped. She gives a
different kind of answer than he was expecting. She says
the windigo always takes, never gives, and to stop the
Wind to Go, she says, you must give yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
You have to die.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Implicit in this is that she understands Boyd to be
part of the wind Togo and the only way to
truly beat it is to admit that you are part
of it. Forsake your hunger and die.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
And Boyd doesn't say I'm asking for a friend. Yeah,
I didn't try to cover it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
So as time goes on, General Slawson and his entourage
arrived at the fort. They hear Boyd's story and they
investigate the cave, but they find nothing there, no bodies,
no bones. There's not a scrap of evidence to back
up the story Boyd has told. And Slawson tries to
get Boyd to amend his statement, but he won't anyway.
General Slawson has brought in a new commanding officer to

(01:07:55):
serve as a replacement for Heart. It's a colonel. Step
into the room, colonel, let's see your new Captain Boyd here,
And it is a colonel named Ives. Uh, oh, it's him.
It's Colhoun. He's all cleaned up now he's in uniform.
And it turns out Colhoun is Ives.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Yeah, gone is the is the prospector's beard and the
crazy eyes. Now we have this like steely calm that
is over him. He looks very professional. He has establishment
cannibalism at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Yes, so Boyd immediately he freaks out and he tries
to tell everyone, but the story doesn't check out because
in his story he got a shot off on Colhoun,
like he shot him in the shoulder. So they're like, okay, well,
if your story's true, he would have a scar. So
they look on Ives body and there are no scars.
They find nothing, just like well fed, unblemish skin.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
Yeah, so Boyd's stock here. He continues to go down
in the generals the general's.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
View here, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
So everybody settles in with the new colonel. There's like
a dinner scene where they're all having ribs except Cleaves.
Discovers that neither Colonel Ives nor Boyd will eat meat.
Ives never eats meat at all, since he can't forget
it used to be an animal, and Boyd says he
will only eat meet as a last resort. There's a

(01:09:11):
later scene where Boyd is looking out the window at
Cleaves as he's setting up some kind of sculpture like
a big cow skeleton thing, and Boyd fantasizes about killing
him and eating his Organs, but then Boyd kind of
snaps out of it. It's like, what's going on with me?
Why can't I stop thinking about eating people?

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Yeah, It's like it's kind of a version of the
Looney Tune scene where you know, one character looks at
another and they just just see a giant turkey leg. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
So later there's one night alone, Boyd is like he's paranoid.
He's sitting outside clutching a big kitchen knife with a
blanket around him, and Ives comes out. He's very suave
and dapper, and he's smoking a cigarello out in the cold,
and Ives breaks the tension by essentially now admitting it
because they're alone. He says to Boyd, I found your

(01:10:00):
private reichup there, or what was left of him you
didn't finish. I can't blame you. He was tough, but
then a good soldier ought to be. And then he
takes a big drag out of his smoke and he says,
you know, not too long ago, I couldn't do that,
could barely take a breath without coughing up a pint
of blood. Tuberculosis that along with fierce headaches, depression, suicidal ambition,

(01:10:26):
I was in pretty horrible shape. In fact, I was
on my way to a sanatorium to convalesce or more
likely die, when en route, this Indian scout told me
a curious story. Man eats the flesh of another, He
takes the other man's strength, absorbs his spirit. Well, naturally,
I just had to try it. Consequently, I ate the

(01:10:48):
scout first, and you know what, he was absolutely right.
I grew stronger. And then he launches into telling the
wagon train story is sort of a different version of
the story he told at the beginning, but now he
is Colonel Ives. He manages to get people stuck in
the mountain so he can eat them. He says he
ate five men in three months, and he says tuberculosis vanished,

(01:11:13):
as did the headaches and the black thoughts. I returned
that spring, happy and healthy and virile. And here I've shifts.
He shifts to kind of tempting, to being the Satan figure,
tempting Boyd. He's like, you know what I'm talking about.
You've done it too, you know its power, So why

(01:11:34):
are you resisting? And Boyd says, what's wrong? It's wrong
to eat people? But Ives mocks him. He says, morality
is the last bastion of a coward. It's like a
man says he cannot do something because it would be wrong.
The real reason is because he's afraid. And then he
keeps tempting him, like he gets a cut on his
hand and he's like, sniff my blood.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Mmm. It's a great state with this and a subsequent
sequence are going to get a subsequent temptation segment sequence
between Ives and Boyd. Just tremendous here, especially from Carlisle.
Just just great acting love every the way the scenes
are put together, tremendous, fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Yeah, And Boyd here tries to attack Ives, but they
are interrupted by Martha and then by Knox, who they
quickly discovered that Cleaves has been killed along with all
of the horses, and Boyd is put under arrest on
suspicion for that killing. So the next day Martha volunteers

(01:12:39):
to make the journey by foot to San Miguel to
get General Slawson for you know, I guess to come
back and investigate crimes once again. So that just leaves Knox,
Boyd and Ives at the fort, and so Boyd is
under arrest and there's this scene where Ives is cooking
a stew yeah, and Knox is like can I help,

(01:12:59):
and is like, not right now, perhaps later you can contribute.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Yes, yes, So we get a little bit of the
comedy here, but they you know, they underscore it's it's nice.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Yeah, and Boyd listens. So in this scene, there are
things happening in the other room, and it becomes apparent
that somebody in the other room has killed Knocks with
his own sword. But then when the door swings open,
it's not i'ves standing there. It's Colonel Heart Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
He smiles and he says hello, Boyd, and he's covered
with blood. Now he doesn't have any of his glasses on.
There's a new energy to this man. It's clear that
he has engaged in the cannibalism.

Speaker 4 (01:13:38):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
So he tells the story of how he thought he
was dying, but he found himself being nursed back to
health in the cave by ives, and he was healed
from his mortal wound because he ate man flesh. He says,
by the time I regained my senses, there was no
turning back.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
I feel terrific.

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
So now Heart and Ives are part of a cannibal conspiracy,
and Heart makes a pitch Boyd.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Should join them, and this is where we get this
other temptation scene that is just excellent. This is where
we get another just tremendous monologue from Carlisle, and it
really kind of drives home I think the central thesis
of the whole picture.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
Yeah, so Boyd is taken out to where Ives is.
I think they're grilling outside. Maybe now are they grilling
parts of Knox or butchering him? I think I don't know,
They're doing some kind of cannibalism stuff outside. And Ives
looks at the mountains and he says, manifest destiny, westward expansion.
You know, come April, it'll all start again. Thousands of

(01:14:44):
gold hungry Americans will travel over those mountains on their
way to new lives, passing right through here. We won't
kill indiscriminately, no, selectively. Good God, we don't want to
break up families. And then oh, yeah, horrible. And then
he he talks about how they want to recruit somebody else,
General Slawson. They want to convert him to the religion

(01:15:07):
of cannibalism because it would be useful to have somebody
that powerful, right, He says, we don't wish to recruit everyone.
We've got enough mouths to feed as it is. We
just need a home. And this country is seeking to
be whole, stretching out its arms, consuming all it can.

Speaker 4 (01:15:25):
We merely follow.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Oh and that line there just gives me chills.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
So Boyd tries to resist them. He says he's not
going to be like them, but the bids continue. Carlyle says,
you're already one of us almost. You hunger for it,
you just won't resign yourself to it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
Oh yeah, and we get that other line that's always
stuck with me. It's not courage to resist me, Boyd,
it's courage to accept me.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
Yes, yeah, yeah, But this makes me think, like, when
are you really part of a conspiracy? Like when you
do the crime or when you accept that doing the
crime is all right?

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Yeah yeah, And there's a lot to chew on here,
cannibal funds aside, But yeah, it's like this idea that
there is this gravity that is pulling all of them
down and there is inevitability to it, And like, Boyd,
you're not doing yourself any favors by fighting against the tide.

(01:16:20):
You'd make things so much easier for yourself and for
everyone around you, if you just gave in, if you've
just accepted the world as it is, the world as
we've made it, if you just accept that you're a
part of it. And that, of course, has been part
of Boyd's moral failing thus far. He's just proceeded through
life like a thing encased in mud or almost fossilized

(01:16:44):
in his environment, and has just been generally just unwilling
and unable to attempt to counteract that flow.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
Yeah, he has acted upon, he does not act against.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Yeah, though he is trying to resist here. And it's
interesting the way that Carlisle, the way that Ives is
like papering over distinctions, Like he's like, you've already done
the same as us, But Boyd hasn't unlike them. He
has not killed to eat man flesh. He's just eaten
of those who already died. But I think they're trying

(01:17:19):
to make that transition for him easier. It's like not
observing the distinction.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
So then Ives tries to persuade Boyd by stabbing him.
So he stabs him. He's like, all right, now you
know the rules. You've either got to eat human or
die from your wound. So Ives and Heart like sit
around the table enjoying a major Knox stew, and at
first Boyd resists, but then the pain of his wound
becomes too great and his fear of death overwhelms him.

Speaker 4 (01:17:45):
And he begins to eat.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
I like, how Yeah, the answer hears for him to
give in and eat the stew too, which is like
the completely civilized version of the cannibal feast, which I
don't think we've had it up into this point. It's
been more like bone nawing. But here is the Santa
Ties version of it, which I think is also rife
with so many different interpretations when you start analyzing this picture,
like here, here's the refined version of the thing you're

(01:18:09):
afraid of. Give in to it become a part of
this operation. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
So the next day, of course, Boyd is all healed up.
The cannibalism does wonders, and there is a conversation between
Boyd and Heart while Ives is outside. Heart talks about
how he misses his books that were taking off his
shelf I guess when he was presumed dead, And he
muses about how even thousands of years ago, Plato and
Aristotle were thinking over the same problems that they can't

(01:18:37):
solve today, like what is happiness and how to get it?
And Boyd says Aristotle wanted to get to truth, not happiness,
and Heart kind of rebels against this. He says, I
spent my whole life trying to do what I thought
was right and true, and now here I am. But
some cracks appear in Heart's conviction. Boyd reminds him of

(01:18:59):
all the people they can cleaves knocks, and Heart kind
of he fights his conscience off. He's screaming about how
you have to kill to live, But Boyd eventually gets
through to him, and Heart kind of collapses and decides,
you're right. I don't want to go on living like this,
boy do You've just got to kill me?

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
And Boyd does this scene here, which is intercut with
a few things concerning Calhoun ives and other characters. But
this scene I think is pretty admirable because a lot
has to happen, particularly with Heart's character, in a very
short amount of time, and I think if it was

(01:19:38):
done even slightly incorrectly, it would have felt really rushed
as it is here, like it feels ultimately feels, you know,
a bit on fast forward, but also completely earned. And
I think it comes down to the direction to the
performances and just the way they've cut it all together. Like,
I end up completely buying it. But man, they do
so much in such a short scene.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
Well, I I think because it comes across that Heart
was also just kind of weak willed, and he was
allowing Ives' confidence in the cannibalism conspiracy to sort of
allow him not to consult his own soul about whether
this was right. He was just like going along with
the justifications that Ives gave. But now that somebody else

(01:20:22):
from the outside is pressuring him, it kind of does
break through the facade and the real heart comes out,
and his guilt and grief are unleashed and he can't deal.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
With it, right, And so now the line is clearly drawn.
Ives sees this happen through the blood splattered window, and
so now it's gonna be a standoff between Bloyd and Ives, Right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
So the rest of the movie is basically this grueling fight,
this duel between Boyd and Ives. They sword fight, they slash, stab,
bash across the landscape of the fort, and then they
end up at the end of this fight in a
bare trap together, which is just perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
Yeah, it's an enormous bear trap, Like I'm almost like
Acme level of bear trap. But it feels earned and
it's a surprise I think they do. We do see
a bear trap earlier in the picture, so it is established.
But oh when it goes off, Yeah, just get.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Them both, I've says to Guy Pearce, if you die first,
I am definitely going to eat you.

Speaker 4 (01:21:23):
But if I die first, what will you do?

Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
Good question, because we actually don't know at this point.
Boyd's character has been portrayed as weak willed enough, and
the story is bleak enough that you could believe it
would end with him just embracing the cannibalism eating him
and becoming win to go again.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Yeah, because that thus far, that's how he has proceeded.
Those are the choices which brought him to this moment.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
But Boyd does have a moral victory in the end
by resisting the temptation. Ives does die first and Boyd
does not chow down. He dies well. But then General
Slawson arrives with his with his retinue, and they they
wander in. They're looking around and he finds a stew
bubbling over the fire. I guess this is still the

(01:22:11):
knock stew, still left over from the day before, and
he decides to taste it, and he tastes it, He's
like delicious, yummy, yummy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
Yeah, So it seems like maybe the cycle will continue
with General Slawson. And then we see Martha show up
and Martha finds the bodies of Boyd and ives and
the bear trap and she just she sees what's happened
and she runs off into the wilderness.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
Yeah, thinking about the slaws in question, like, if he
eats the stew, does he become the wind to go?
Within the logic of the movie, Are you a wind
to go if you don't know that you're eating human
I think that's a that's a real question. Like it
comes back to one of the questions that we raised earlier,
like does the monstrosity arise from eating human flesh physically?

(01:22:57):
Is it the physical processing of it with your digestive
system even if you don't know what it is, Or
is it the conscious awareness that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:05):
You are eating human flesh?

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
Or is it the moral acceptance of yourself as one
who eats human flesh? So the distinction between those last
two being like being aware that you're eating human flesh,
but not feeling okay about it, versus feeling like, all right,
it's okay that I'm doing this, versus the final thing
is killing the act of killing someone in order to

(01:23:28):
get more human flesh.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
They're all like.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
Different points on a continuum, and I guess you could ask,
at what point does one become the monster? And does
each step kind of lead to the next step.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
That's a great question. Yeah, the movie leaves it ambiguous,
like we can I think reasonably think that, Okay, Slawson
is going to eat this stuff. It tastes great. He's
probably going to just really pig out on it and
maybe have like a really great week. He's going to
take up new hobbies, he's going to get a lot
done at work. But will he be able to make
the connection? And maybe he will, Maybe there's enough essentially

(01:24:02):
forensic evidence at the camp that he'll realize what he
ate and then start making increasingly horrific choices, but maybe not.
But then also it does kind of tie into some
of the questions raised, like what happens when you come
along and you eat this stew and you don't know
how the stew was made. It's just presented to you,
and now what are you for having participated in this meal?

Speaker 3 (01:24:25):
All right, well that's ravenous.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think it really holds up. I think
it's a great, great film that really stands out. Hard
to think of another film from nineteen ninety nine that
really that I keep coming back to, But this is
the one. I mean, it's it's not End of Days,
it's not blair Witch product product, Blair Witch Project that

(01:24:49):
should have been a sequel Blair Witch product.

Speaker 3 (01:24:52):
My memory is actually that Blair Witch Project is pretty good.
I think, yeah, I think it might hold up pretty well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
I think with that one it really impressed me at
the time, But then we saw so much found footage
material that I've just been so resistant to going back
and watching anything from that year. I don't know. I
look at a list of other ninety ninety nine films.
That was the year we had audition. I'm in no
hurry to rewatch that. But that was pretty strong as well.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
With that remake of The Haunting with Liam Neeson and
Catherine Zeta Jones.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
How about that that's not on the list from the
rewatch anytime soon? All Right?

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
Does that do it for today?

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Yeah? We're gonna ahead and close it up here, but
we'd love to hear from everyone out there. What are
your thoughts on Ravenous or other cannibal films or other
films from nineteen ninety nine. It's all fair game, right in.
Let us know we would love to hear from you.
You can get this show wherever you get your podcasts.
Get it either in the Stuff to Blow your Mind
podcast feed where it publishes every Friday, or on its

(01:25:51):
own in its own standalone playlist, which you can currently
get wherever you get your podcasts, as well, wherever you
get Weird House cinema rate and review. That really helps
us out. If you were on letterbox dot com, look
us up. Our user name there is weird House and
we have a big old list of all the movies
we've watched over the years, and sometimes we get a
peek ahead at what's next.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:26:30):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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