It’s been over 15 years since Ravenous, an oft overlooked and criminally underappreciated cannibal film, came out. Directed by Antonia Bird (who came aboard the project two weeks after it began filming) and starring Guy Pearce (Prometheus), Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later), David Arquette (Scream), Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice), and more, the movie is a unique, fun, often times very funny take on the Wendigo myth.
The movie starts off rather innocently (if one can say that). Pearce’s character, Captain Boyd (who has the fewest lines for a main character that I think I’ve ever seen), is sent to Fort Spencer, which is in the middle of nowhere. Later that night, Colqhoun (played by Carlyle) enters the picture and tells a grim tale of how his wagon party became lost in the mountains and they had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. From that point on, things just get crazier and crazier. With a fantastic third act, the film winds up being a throughly enjoyable time.
But what really catches my attention is the score, which is composed by both Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn (Gorillaz, Blur), although Nyman in an interview stated that the “collaboration”, “…was a joint composition in the sense that Damon Albarn composed 60% of the tracks, and I did the rest.“. The score winded up garnering a lot of positive acclaim and is considered one of the highlights of the film. Its off-kilter timing and strange, almost comedic lilts lend an almost schizophrenic air to the film.
If you haven’t seen Ravenous, my recommendation is to sit down tonight (or sometime this weekend) and give it a watch. It’s on Netflix, so you have no excuse!