Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb
Speaker 2: and this is Joe McCormick. Today is July the fourth
Speaker 2: Independence Day in the United States, as many of our
Speaker 2: American listeners can attest to, and I think our international
Speaker 2: listeners can also attest to to varying degrees and understand,
Speaker 2: national patriotic holidays like this can be really weird to process.
Speaker 2: They are at their they're very least a time of
Speaker 2: celebrating certain ideals while often ignoring the more complex or
Speaker 2: even problematic elements of a nation's history and place in
Speaker 2: the world. I often find myself just like, end up
Speaker 2: with a day off on the on the fourth, and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, what am I doing? What's the game plan?
Speaker 2: I guess I'll watch some fireworks and this year I
Speaker 2: made some space for today's movie.
Speaker 3: Oh, on the fourth of July itself, or just in advance,
Speaker 3: like are you going to watch it again on the fourth?
Speaker 2: Who knows what I'll do? But I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: given publication delights, you know, I couldn't actually watch it
Speaker 2: on the fourth, but in anticipation of the fourth.
Speaker 3: I see typically if we watch a movie on the
Speaker 3: fourth of July, it's Jaws. That's you know, for obvious reasons,
Speaker 3: fourth of July is.
Speaker 4: A big holiday.
Speaker 3: In the narrative of Jaws, it's very much a summer movie,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, it just kind of feels right,
Speaker 3: especially if the day involves, like otherwise being outdoors or
Speaker 3: barbecuing or something. At some point you come inside, sit
Speaker 3: down and watch Jaws. I think we we haven't really
Speaker 3: done this fully in a few years since my daughter
Speaker 3: was born, but I don't know, I think we're working
Speaker 3: our way back up to it at some point. And
Speaker 3: another tradition we used to have. This may sound a
Speaker 3: little bit cheesy, but so we used to like read
Speaker 3: Walt Whitman out loud in our house on the fourth
Speaker 3: of July. It's it's a good thing to do. I
Speaker 3: recommend that.
Speaker 2: Nice. Nice. So these are both solid, solid choices, especially Jaws,
Speaker 2: and because again the greatest primordial summer blockbuster in many respects,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's set the blueprint for blockbusters to follow.
Speaker 2: But also, you know, Jaws, in its own interesting way
Speaker 2: at least dips its toes into some contemplation about America.
Speaker 4: I have to think about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I think it's in there. But the picture
Speaker 2: that we've selected here is nineteen ninety nine's Ravenous. Of note,
Speaker 2: this is only our second nineteen ninety nine film. The
Speaker 2: only other film from nineteen ninety nine that we've watched
Speaker 2: is Deep Blue Sea, a shark movie.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, interesting connection, you know it. Maybe it's not
Speaker 3: just the narrative of Jaws that ties into the fourth
Speaker 3: of July. There is something very American feeling about the
Speaker 3: subgenre of the shark film that's just part of the
Speaker 3: national identity. Looking for connections between Deep Blue Sea and Ravenous.
Speaker 3: Not a huge amount in terms of I don't know
Speaker 3: the fee or content, but I guess they're both very
Speaker 3: much about eating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Deep Blucy very much feels like a nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine film. Ravenous in many ways just really feels out
Speaker 2: of place, Like it feels like maybe its soul is
Speaker 2: more seated I don't know, in the nineteen seventies or
Speaker 2: or in a way, it's almost like a blueprint of
Speaker 2: things that might come later. And as we'll discuss, I
Speaker 2: don't think anybody knew what to do with this film
Speaker 2: when it came out in nineteen ninety nine, no one
Speaker 2: knew how to market it, and no but and a
Speaker 2: lot of people didn't really know how to receive it.
Speaker 3: It is one of those artifacts, like floating outside of time.
Speaker 3: It feels like it doesn't really fit in exactly anywhere.
Speaker 3: It is a strange. There are strange anachronisms within it,
Speaker 3: like this is a period movie set in the eighteen forties,
Speaker 3: and something I think especially about the sound track, leans
Speaker 3: a little bit into the sound of a nineteenth century music,
Speaker 3: you know. It involves like some accordion voicings and banjos
Speaker 3: and fiddles and things like that, but also has these
Speaker 3: electronic elements that kind of pull it out of the
Speaker 3: time space in which you're supposed to be imagining it.
Speaker 3: And as a result, it does kind of feel like
Speaker 3: this alien object that's just kind of like inserted randomly
Speaker 3: into the last one hundred years of culture.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the soundtrack, the score, especially as we'll discuss, gives
Speaker 2: it this kind of vibe of something ancient that is
Speaker 2: clawing its way up into the modern world.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I originally saw this one back more or less
Speaker 2: when it first came out. I did not see it
Speaker 2: in the theaters. I don't know how many people actually did.
Speaker 2: I caught it on home video, maybe even VHS, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. Probably it was probably DVD. This was a
Speaker 2: time when DVD was really getting into the vibe. But
Speaker 2: I have to say it really impressed me back then.
Speaker 2: I was a rather different person back then, but it
Speaker 2: still impressed me when I rewatched it today. I think
Speaker 2: it certainly has its flaws, and we'll touch on some
Speaker 2: of those, but it's quite exceptional in its rumination on
Speaker 2: its central thesis, which it rolls out. I think with
Speaker 2: enough care and nuance that it invites us to further
Speaker 2: ruminate on what this film means and what it's saying,
Speaker 2: without transforming the picture into a kind of blunt instrument
Speaker 2: of social or political commentary.
Speaker 3: You know, something about the setting in time and in place,
Speaker 3: and the fact that it takes place among kind of
Speaker 3: military officers within, you know, a couple of decades of
Speaker 3: the US Civil War makes it feel like it should
Speaker 3: have some kind of political historical commentary. Whatever political historical
Speaker 3: commentary is there feels kind of subtle to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 3: Overall, the main themes are more of a classic morality struggle,
Speaker 3: but with Gonzo Freddy Krueger elements.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think it ultimately
Speaker 2: strikes a nice balance in its commentary. I do think
Speaker 2: if it had been made ten years ago instead of
Speaker 2: twenty six years ago, I think it would have been
Speaker 2: more aggressive in its critique. I think it might have
Speaker 2: been a little blunter. And I don't know it's These
Speaker 2: are big what ifs, but I can easily imagine a
Speaker 2: picture that was ultimately less successful. So if you're not
Speaker 2: familiar with nineteen ninety nine's Ravenous, this is a weird one.
Speaker 2: Ravenus is a frontier cannibal movie set in eighteen forties California.
Speaker 2: It draws clear inspiration from both the Donner Party and
Speaker 2: the confess and the confessions of alleged cannibal Alfred Packer,
Speaker 2: And there's also a dash of Windigo of lore from
Speaker 2: Algonquin folklore. Now, given this premise, you might well expect
Speaker 2: a couple of different possible treatments. You might think, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be an exploitive horror movie. This is
Speaker 2: gonna be like a Gonzo maybe even euro cannibal film
Speaker 2: we saw in the seventies and eighties, including Cannibal Apocalypse,
Speaker 2: which we've covered on Weird House Cinema partially filmed right
Speaker 2: over here indicator.
Speaker 3: I'd say there are some special effects sequences that are
Speaker 3: similar to cannibal Apocalypse. Y. Yeah, there's some kind of
Speaker 3: shoving of organs into the mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they definitely, they definitely get in there and paint
Speaker 2: with those brushstrokes. But at the same time, it doesn't
Speaker 2: really go overboard there either. I wouldn't say so if
Speaker 2: you come into this wanting like a complete gore fest,
Speaker 2: it might not deliver, certainly by sort of like fangoria standards.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At the same time, yeah, you might think, well, this
Speaker 2: is about cannibalism, and cannibalism is inherently funny. There's no
Speaker 2: denying it. No matter how serious your treatment of cannibalism is,
Speaker 2: you can't help but get a yuck in there, you know,
Speaker 2: somewhere or another, in part because cannibalism is such a
Speaker 2: dark topic. But then there it also there are just
Speaker 2: so many potentially humorous wrinkles to the concept.
Speaker 3: Cannibalism really lends itself to puns and word play, a
Speaker 3: little double on tondras in sentences. Have you noticed that
Speaker 3: I feel like almost more than basically anything except sex.
Speaker 3: Cannibalism is just like the double on tundras leap out
Speaker 3: of the language for you, right.
Speaker 2: And then they often go back into sex as well.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's all over the place. And so
Speaker 2: you might well think, well, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a you know, a grizzly comedy, maybe along the lines
Speaker 2: of Trey Parker's Cannibal the Musical, which came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, based in part on the Alfred Packer
Speaker 2: account which I just referenced. And it to be clear,
Speaker 2: this film does have its intentional laughs, but it also
Speaker 2: shows a great deal of restraint here as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is I would say a good bit of
Speaker 3: humor in this movie, but it's way less overt than
Speaker 3: in Cannibal the Musical. I mean, this is not in
Speaker 3: any sense played for comedy. Instead, it's it's one of
Speaker 3: those it's a dark story that is through and through
Speaker 3: dark on its face, and I think the viewer is
Speaker 3: expected to find little ironic amusements throughout it. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like you're having a little chuckle, but there's nothing,
Speaker 3: no juicy comedy happening on screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it's generally on the money to
Speaker 2: think of Ravenous as a horror film. Absolutely. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to make an argument that it doesn't belong in
Speaker 2: that section of the video rental store, but I think
Speaker 2: when you look at it, yeah, it also tends to
Speaker 2: defy categorization in other ways, and I think the studio
Speaker 2: clearly didn't know what to make of it. Audiences and
Speaker 2: critics also tended to respond as such. I believe Ebert
Speaker 2: really liked it, but I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: just didn't know what to make of it. No one
Speaker 2: really knew what to do with a serious minded cannibal
Speaker 2: slash sort of vampire frontier film reflecting on, you know,
Speaker 2: to a certain extent, on the dark side of American
Speaker 2: destiny and capitalism or at least human nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean nothing marketers hate more than something that
Speaker 3: takes too many words to describe. Yes, it's just like
Speaker 3: hard to market something that doesn't really fit its genre
Speaker 3: tropes very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as such, the original marketing for this film
Speaker 2: is just I mostly just hate all of it. I
Speaker 2: hate all the posters and box art for it. It
Speaker 2: just all of it's just kind of like ugly looking.
Speaker 2: I don't like the trailer, and I don't think any
Speaker 2: of this has changed. It's weird, Like, this is a
Speaker 2: film that has definitely developed its own cult following over
Speaker 2: the years, and it's readily available. It's been re released,
Speaker 2: you know, in Blu ray and so forth, but the
Speaker 2: packaging is still more or less the same. I picked
Speaker 2: up the box at Video Drome here in Atlanta, and
Speaker 2: it's the recent Shout Factory release, which is very nice
Speaker 2: as all these extras that were originally on the DVD release,
Speaker 2: And it's the same description the box states quote it's
Speaker 2: a recipe for NonStop action and excitement when the inhabitants
Speaker 2: of an isolated military post go up against a marauding
Speaker 2: band of cannibals in a deadly struggle for survival.
Speaker 3: That doesn't even accurately describe the plot. No, but then
Speaker 3: it also gets the tone wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the tone is totally incorrect here, Like, I
Speaker 2: love this film, but it is not a recipe for
Speaker 2: NonStop action and excitement.
Speaker 3: It is also it's not that this makes it sound
Speaker 3: like it's like a bunch of soldiers having a shootout
Speaker 3: with a cannibal gang that attacks them, like it's mad
Speaker 3: Max or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or maybe the thing. You know, there's some comparisons
Speaker 2: to be made there, but yeah, totally different vibe.
Speaker 3: It's actually closer to the thing than what this makes
Speaker 3: it sound like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So my alternate elevator pitch for this would
Speaker 2: be cannibalism American style. But even that makes it sound
Speaker 2: like it's going to be more of a comedy than
Speaker 2: it actually is.
Speaker 3: If I could give it a slightly pretentious elevator pitch,
Speaker 3: I'll cite a line from the movie. The characters in
Speaker 3: the movie discuss a believe a Benjamin Franklin quote where
Speaker 3: they say, eat to live, don't live to eat. Well,
Speaker 3: that's an interesting aphorism. This movie explores what that aphorism
Speaker 3: means when you have to interrogate the meaning of both
Speaker 3: live and eat.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, I'm going to skip the trailer since
Speaker 2: I've already established that I don't really like it, I
Speaker 2: would recommend, I if you've not seen the film, I'd
Speaker 2: recommend just going in cold and experiencing it. And you know,
Speaker 2: don't even look at the box, don't even look at
Speaker 2: the posters. But if you want to watch it on
Speaker 2: your own, it is widely available for digital rent and purchase.
Speaker 2: The Shout Factory Blu ray is definitely the pick for
Speaker 2: physical media. It contains numerous extras, including no fewer than
Speaker 2: three commentary tracks. I believe these were on the original release.
Speaker 2: This is just that period I believe, for excitement for
Speaker 2: regarding disc extras, so they just went all out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the original release
Speaker 3: of this movie on DVD had little like little easter eggs.
Speaker 4: In the menus. Oh yes, something.
Speaker 3: You could like navigate over to and click and would
Speaker 3: play like a I don't know, you'd have like a
Speaker 3: dancing Robert Carlyle and.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, this is when they did all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. And I have to admit I haven't
Speaker 2: really gone into the extras on the disc. I feel
Speaker 2: like this is sometimes I really like to do that
Speaker 2: with a film for a weird house and get more
Speaker 2: of the backstory. This, I really feel like, is a
Speaker 2: film that just speaks so well for itself as itself.
Speaker 2: But you know, sometime down the line, I might really
Speaker 2: get into the extras because they look really good. You've
Speaker 2: got Carlisle and Bird doing a commentary track. You've got
Speaker 2: you know, various other individuals involved in the production, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's all really good stuff.
Speaker 3: One thing I would say before we go any further
Speaker 3: is that, of course, always on Weird House Cinema, we
Speaker 3: end up talking about the plot in some amount of
Speaker 3: detail as we go on, and that will include spoilers
Speaker 3: for the story. In cases where I think, you know
Speaker 3: you might want to go in without anything spoiled, I
Speaker 3: throw a warning up. I think this is probably one
Speaker 3: of those. This is a movie where you might want
Speaker 3: to watch it without any of the surprises ruined. So
Speaker 3: fair warning, folks. If you haven't seen the movie you
Speaker 3: feel like you want to, this might be a good
Speaker 3: place to pause.
Speaker 4: And go check it out before listening further.
Speaker 2: All right, we've given you the warning, So now we're
Speaker 2: going to get into the meat of the people involved
Speaker 2: in this production, starting at the top. The director here
Speaker 2: is Antonia Byrd, who lived nineteen fifty one through twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen English TV and film director and also occasional producer.
Speaker 2: Her TV credits go back to the early eighties, working
Speaker 2: on various series and TV movies, including some work in
Speaker 2: the long running series EastEnders. In ninety four, she directed
Speaker 2: the film Priest starring Linus Roach, Tom Wilkinson and Robert Carlyle,
Speaker 2: which earned her a BAFF denomination among other honors. She
Speaker 2: followed this up with nineteen ninety five's Mad Love, no
Speaker 2: relation to the Peter Lorie picture. This one starred Chris
Speaker 2: O'Donnell and Drew Barrymore. But what if it had been
Speaker 2: a remake of Mad Love.
Speaker 3: Starring Chris O'Donnell and Chris O'Donnell as.
Speaker 2: In the role of a lifetime in the Peter louri role.
Speaker 4: Amazing.
Speaker 2: She also did nineteen ninety seven's Face, a crime drama
Speaker 2: starring Robert Carlisle alongside Ray Winston. Ravenous would be her
Speaker 2: last feature film, but she continued to work in television,
Speaker 2: directing a handful of TV movies and episodes of shows
Speaker 2: like I five and Cracker. She was one of the
Speaker 2: UK's leading female directors by many estimates. She sadly passed
Speaker 2: away following a battle with cancer. Now it is important
Speaker 2: to include a brief note about the production here. So
Speaker 2: first of all, just incidentally, this movie was filmed primarily
Speaker 2: in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, So I think all
Speaker 2: of these scenes that are supposed to be the American
Speaker 2: Frontier are actually a europe And then the scenes that
Speaker 2: take place in Mexico were actually filmed in Mexico.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: Bird was apparently a last minute replacement for a different
Speaker 2: director of Macedonia and director miltshow Manchewsky and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure on the details there ultimately not important, but amid
Speaker 2: discussions of who are going to get into who's going
Speaker 2: to step in and direct this picture? Now getting down
Speaker 2: to the last minute, you know, the cast, everything, all
Speaker 2: these expensive pieces are in place, and it's Robert Carlyle
Speaker 2: who reportedly suggested that they get Bird based on his
Speaker 2: previous work with her.
Speaker 3: It was clearly a good move. You can feel something
Speaker 3: about something that is really working in this movie is
Speaker 3: a kind of playfulness and a freedom to experiment that
Speaker 3: I think you can feel coming from the top, at
Speaker 3: least that's my sense in watching it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe that's the sense that you get
Speaker 2: when you read interview pieces from Carlyle about the picture.
Speaker 2: So he had worked with her on episodes of TVs
Speaker 2: The Bill Cracker, as well as an anthology series called Screenplay.
Speaker 2: The episode that Bird directed was nineteen ninety three episode
Speaker 2: titled Safe that centered around homelessness and also feature Aidan
Speaker 2: Gillen and Kate Hardy. So yeah, he always he seems
Speaker 2: like he always spoke very highly of citing her collaborative
Speaker 2: spirit and her onset demeanor. In a nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: interview with The Guardian that, to be clear, was promoting
Speaker 2: this picture, he said the following about power dynamics on productions,
Speaker 2: Antonia is very different for most directors in thinking that way.
Speaker 2: The more you do in your career and the more
Speaker 2: success you get, you can pick and choose. But I've
Speaker 2: been confronted with a power thing from directors before, and
Speaker 2: that's what makes Antonia refreshing because she doesn't have that.
Speaker 2: It's a collaborative thing. It's about trust, and you build
Speaker 2: up trust over a period of years, and therefore you
Speaker 2: will do anything for each other.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, So if I'm interpreting that right, that
Speaker 3: does match the feeling I get from watching the movie
Speaker 3: where it is. You get the sense that this is
Speaker 3: the kind of production where people were just trying things.
Speaker 3: I do something weird and then it's like, oh, that
Speaker 3: kind of works, let's go with that. Yeah, Instead of
Speaker 3: a director just draconian lee to you know, bossing everybody
Speaker 3: around and saying no, I've got a vision, do it
Speaker 3: this way.
Speaker 2: And of course all that makes sense when we get
Speaker 2: into the cast here in just a minute, because it's
Speaker 2: a great cast of character actors and experienced the stage
Speaker 2: and screen actors, and so you can really feel it
Speaker 2: all come together. Yeah, all right. The screenplay is by
Speaker 2: Ted Griffin born nineteen seventy. This was his first produced
Speaker 2: feature film script, but he followed it up with two
Speaker 2: thousand and one's adaptation of Ocean's Eleven, based on a
Speaker 2: previous film from many years back. He also did two
Speaker 2: thousand and threes matchtick Men, the twenty ten series Terriers,
Speaker 2: twenty eleven's Tower Heist, and twenty ten Solace. He also
Speaker 2: got into producing and co produced twenty thirteen's The Wolf
Speaker 2: of Wall Street. All right, heading up our cast, top
Speaker 2: build is Guy Pierce playing the character Boyd. They we're
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven, and I think everybody knows who
Speaker 2: Guy Pierce is, big name Australian actor who really broke
Speaker 2: into the mainstream with his supporting role in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven's La Confidential.
Speaker 3: I would argue Guy Pearce is really playing against type
Speaker 3: in this movie. He again and again throughout his career
Speaker 3: he plays characters that are very driven, it kind of focused,
Speaker 3: competent of people who are always the active party in
Speaker 3: the scene, always the agent, And here he plays the
Speaker 3: exact opposite, a character whose main vice is cowardice and indecision.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's a great read because whether he's
Speaker 2: playing heroes or villains, which and he does both terrifically,
Speaker 2: it is generally a very driven character, and in this film,
Speaker 2: the character is intentionally presented is very passive for much
Speaker 2: of the film, resigned to whatever fate has seemingly for
Speaker 2: whatever fate has seemingly chosen for him, and you know,
Speaker 2: as such, he doesn't even seem to have much agency
Speaker 2: at first, and on the whole speaks very little in
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a weird choice to have a protagonist this way.
Speaker 3: He's like, there are multiple scenes where he is an
Speaker 3: officer in the military in this film, but he has
Speaker 3: like men underneath him who are having to kind of
Speaker 3: like give him orders essentially because he's just frozen and
Speaker 3: he doesn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, prior to La Confidential, his Australian credits included
Speaker 2: the cult favorite drag film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen
Speaker 2: of the Desert, alongside Hugo Weaving and Terrence Stamp. So
Speaker 2: this film pretty much follows up on the La Confidential
Speaker 2: boom and proceeds a string of early two thousand films
Speaker 2: Christopher Nolan's Memento in two thousand, of Course, two thousand twos,
Speaker 2: The Count of Monte Crisco, two thousand and two's The Time Machine.
Speaker 2: Subsequent credits included such films as two thousand and five's
Speaker 2: The Proposition, two thousand and eights, The hurt Locker, two
Speaker 2: thousand nine's The Road, twenty twelve's Prometheus, twenty thirteen's Iron
Speaker 2: Man three, in which he gets to play the chief villain,
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen Brimstone. I believe that's another grim sort of
Speaker 2: Western frontier picture, twenty seventeen's Alien Covenant, small but memorable
Speaker 2: role there. A turn as Scrooge in twenty nineteen's A
Speaker 2: Christmas Carol. I haven't seen that, but I'm imagining it
Speaker 2: as Peter Wayland as Scrooge, so I hope that wouldn't disappoint.
Speaker 3: Dan Aykroyd did nothing but trouble as Scrooge.
Speaker 2: And then oh he's in twenty twenty fours The Shrouds.
Speaker 2: That's I believe the latest Cronenberg film. Haven't seen that one.
Speaker 2: And he's also in The Brutalist, for which he was
Speaker 2: nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I always like Guy Pearson. He is great in this,
Speaker 3: but once again, a very different kind of role for him.
Speaker 2: All right, now, coming back to Robert Carlyle. Robert Carlile
Speaker 2: plays We're past spoilers at this point, so we can
Speaker 2: go in and say that it's kind of a double role.
Speaker 2: He plays a character that it's initially identified as with
Speaker 2: the name Calhoun, come to know as ives.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of great things about this movie,
Speaker 3: but I would say Robert Carlyle is the hub around.
Speaker 4: Which the spokes revolve here.
Speaker 3: He is the core of this movie, and he's like
Speaker 3: the best thing in it. He is driving this train
Speaker 3: and he's driving it right off the tracks and it's great.
Speaker 4: He is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really gets to shine here. He gets to
Speaker 2: go in various directions. It's in many ways a Dracula
Speaker 2: role in all the great ways that it's a Dracula role,
Speaker 2: but with all these other layers in place, like he
Speaker 2: gets to play a frontier mad man, he gets to
Speaker 2: play a cold, pragmatist villain. He gets to be this
Speaker 2: kind of embodiment of predatory capitalism and empire. And there
Speaker 2: are also subtle homoerotic layers to the character as well.
Speaker 2: I don't think those are as pronounced, or at least
Speaker 2: they didn't jump out at me as much. But you know,
Speaker 2: based on interviews I've seen with Carlile, he does stress
Speaker 2: that that it was part of the calculus of the character.
Speaker 2: So Carlile is of course a note Scottish actor whose
Speaker 2: credits go back to the late eighties, starring in TV
Speaker 2: with some small roles before starring in nineteen ninety one's
Speaker 2: riff Raft, which earned him earned him a BAF denomination,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't long after this that he worked with
Speaker 2: byrd Onsafe and then worked with her again on Priest
Speaker 2: the same year. Nineteen ninety four. He also appeared in
Speaker 2: a supporting role in the Robin Williams film Being Human.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, he appeared in Danny Boyle's Train Spotting,
Speaker 2: playing the sadistic Oh It's been a while since I've
Speaker 2: seen this. I think the character's name is Begbie. It's
Speaker 2: been forever. Yeah, Franco Begbee, I think. And this is
Speaker 2: a role he'd reprise in twenty seventeen's T two Trained Spotting.
Speaker 2: He followed this up with ninety seven's Face and The
Speaker 2: Full Monty And this was another role he'd later reprise
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen The Full Monty TV Project. He was
Speaker 2: in ninety nine's Plunkett McClean ninety nine's The World Is
Speaker 2: Not Enough. I forgot about this one. But he's a
Speaker 2: Bond villain.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's the villain of it. I've seen this movie,
Speaker 3: but I don't really remember he.
Speaker 2: Is either this is Yeah, I'm not a big fan
Speaker 2: of this era of Bond pictures. But he either plays
Speaker 2: the main villain or the chief henchman.
Speaker 4: Okay, The World Is Not Oh? Is this the one with? Yes? Sorry,
Speaker 4: just had to look it up.
Speaker 3: She's doctor Christmas Jones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I think I saw this, but I maybe
Speaker 2: I didn't because I don't really remember any of this.
Speaker 3: I notice it's a forgettable one. It's got a showdown
Speaker 3: in a nuclear submarine I think in the end, and
Speaker 3: Robert Carlyle is he's a villain called Renard. I had
Speaker 3: to look this up to jog my memory. I truly
Speaker 3: did not remember any of these details.
Speaker 2: Goldie is in it, the UK DJ musician. But yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe I haven't seen this one at all.
Speaker 3: Well it's not Robert Carlyle's Fault's.
Speaker 2: Good no, but you know, more power to him forgetting that.
Speaker 2: That Bond villain pay day, let's see that same year, though,
Speaker 2: he was in Angela's Ashes, and then in two thousand
Speaker 2: he was in the Beach. He played Adolf Hitler in
Speaker 2: the two thousand three mini series Hitler The Rise of Evil.
Speaker 2: Other credits include two thousand and seven's Aragon and also
Speaker 2: twenty eight weeks later from the same year. And he
Speaker 2: also played the role of sort of an updated version
Speaker 2: of Rumpel Stilskin on TVs Once Upon a Time, which
Speaker 2: ran from twenty eleven to twenty eighteen. All right, third
Speaker 2: billing for this picture is David Arquette playing the character Cleaves.
Speaker 3: Third billing. That's a strange choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I guess they were capitalizing on
Speaker 2: his sort of like MTV era Scream franchise celebrity status
Speaker 2: at the time, but this is a very minimal role,
Speaker 2: kind of a mild comic relief stoner character.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's good in his scenes, no offense to
Speaker 3: David Arkette at all, but he's more unhinged than I
Speaker 3: would have expected David Arquette to get, like his hysterical
Speaker 3: laughter at absolutely nothing and also like while he's getting gutted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess they you know they when they
Speaker 2: were marketing and they're like, you liked Scream right, well,
Speaker 2: enjoy ravenous because yet at this point Scream one and
Speaker 2: two had already come out the same year he starred
Speaker 2: and Never Been Kissed. Subsequent films include two thousand and
Speaker 2: two's Eight Legged Freaks, two thousand and fours Never Die Alone,
Speaker 2: and also twenty fifteen's Bone Tomahawk, which you know is
Speaker 2: another weird Western frontier movie.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: I remember having mixed feelings about that one, because I
Speaker 3: thought like, in some ways it was well made, but
Speaker 3: also it just made me feel so nasty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of a kind of a nasty one.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm like again, only twenty fifteen, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure it has aged well. But and I haven't gone
Speaker 2: back and rewatched it, but I enjoyed the experience when
Speaker 2: it came out. You know, Kurt Russell's great and everything
Speaker 2: and solid supporting cast in that one as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, who is it?
Speaker 2: Oh Man who plays Richard Jenkins. Richard Jenkins is outstanding
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 4: He's great in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I remember that one just being particularly just
Speaker 3: mean and vile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get into the more of the
Speaker 2: supporting cast. Here. We have Jeremy Davis playing Toffler. Born
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, American actor who the same year was
Speaker 2: part of the cast of Saving Private Ryan. He'd already
Speaker 2: appeared in ninety six's Twister. Subsequent films included two thousand
Speaker 2: and two Secretary as well as Solaris, and he played
Speaker 2: Charles Manson in two thousand and fours Helter Skelter that
Speaker 2: was a TV film, And he also had roles on
Speaker 2: TV's Lost and Justified.
Speaker 3: It's weird to imagine him playing Charles Manson because he
Speaker 3: usually played it once again against type there. He usually
Speaker 3: plays these kind of quiet, frightened, timid mouse like characters.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a he's like a sweet but weird dude
Speaker 2: in this very religious If we haven't mentioned it already.
Speaker 2: One of the whole things here is that all of
Speaker 2: the people that have been kind of exiled to this
Speaker 2: remote outpost in ravenous they are all outcast of one
Speaker 2: sort of or another. They have been put here to
Speaker 2: be forgotten. This is the ubliette of the American Frontier. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, And then we have a major supporting character
Speaker 2: by the name of Heart, played by Jeffrey Jones born
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six. And this one is kind of a
Speaker 2: tough one to write about and to bring up here,
Speaker 2: because Jones was one of I think the most beloved
Speaker 2: weirdo character actors of the eighties and nineties, noted for
Speaker 2: roles in such films as eighty four Zama Dais of course,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six is Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which
Speaker 2: he is the principal. He also has a fun villain
Speaker 2: role in Howard the Duck. The same year, He's in
Speaker 2: eighty eight Beetlejuice, ninety two Stay Tuned, and nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: four's ed Wood, in which he played the amazing Chris Well.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: On TV. He had a regular cast role on HBO's Deadwood.
Speaker 2: But of course legal problems in two thousand and two
Speaker 2: with some really rough charges that I don't even want
Speaker 2: to get into here on the podcast, but the info
Speaker 2: is readily available on Wikipedia and everywhere else. This essentially
Speaker 2: ended his career at any rate. His on screen work
Speaker 2: was always terrific, and he's great in this as his
Speaker 2: heart is it Colonel Heart. I can't remember. I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily remember everybody's military rank. Yeah, but Heart is a
Speaker 2: very likable character and it has a very nice, it
Speaker 2: perhaps a bit rushed character.
Speaker 3: Arc, which sets up a late movie twist that is
Speaker 3: I remember back in the day, was like a real
Speaker 3: gut punch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and yeah it hit the same way even
Speaker 2: though it was knowing it was coming, all right. We
Speaker 2: also have General Slawson with great choice of a name
Speaker 2: because it sounds like it goes with barbecue, played by
Speaker 2: John Spencer, who lived nineteen forty six through two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, noted American actor best remembered for his role
Speaker 2: as Leo McGarry on TV's The West Wing. Other credits
Speaker 2: include eighty three's War Games, eighty nine's Black Rain, nineties
Speaker 2: Presumed Innocent, ninety six is the Rock in ninety seven's Copland.
Speaker 2: This was his last theatrical appearance.
Speaker 3: I was thinking of this character as General Cole Slawson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do those nicknames. Yeah, he's he's really good
Speaker 2: at this. You know, you're authority figure. Everything that you
Speaker 2: would ask about that character, it does a good job.
Speaker 2: All right. We also we have a return of a
Speaker 2: character actor that we previously talked about on the show.
Speaker 2: Steven Spinella plays Knox born nineteen fifty six, American actor
Speaker 2: of stage, screen, and TV. We previously talked about him
Speaker 2: because he was in nineteen ninety five's Virtuosity. He played
Speaker 2: the creepy doctor Lindenmeyer.
Speaker 3: Is this the guy who ends up he creates SID
Speaker 3: six point seven, Yes, the Russell Crow virtual reality murderer,
Speaker 3: but then like starts worshiping him.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yes, yeah so yeah, great creepy performance in Virtuosity.
Speaker 2: Totally different vibe here is he plays brash, terminally alcoholic,
Speaker 2: major knocks. His other main film credits include two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight's Milk, twenty tens Rubber, and twenty twelve's Lincoln.
Speaker 2: Solid performance here, all right. Then we also have Reich.
Speaker 2: This is the character played by Neil McDonough born nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty six Stealely American tough guy actor whose first role
Speaker 2: was a dock worker in nineteen nineties Dark Man. He
Speaker 2: also popped up in ninety six's Star Trek. First Contact
Speaker 2: really busted out with a role in two thousand and
Speaker 2: one's Band of Brothers, followed by a key role in
Speaker 2: two thousand and two's Minority Report, and he got to
Speaker 2: play m Bison in the two thousand and nine Street
Speaker 2: Fighter movie.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's the later movie because yeah, for me,
Speaker 3: m Bison will always be Roald Julia.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, Once Raal Julia has played a role, it's
Speaker 2: his forever. So mcdoud is good here. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a one note role, but it's a good note. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right. And then we have a couple of Native
Speaker 2: American actors to round everything out. First we have Joseph
Speaker 2: Running Fox playing the character of George born nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 2: Native American actor of the Pueblo Nation whose credits go
Speaker 2: back to nineteen seventy eight. He played the lead in
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety three Geronimo TV movie, and since Ravenus
Speaker 2: has continued to work steadily, appearing in two thousand and
Speaker 2: two Skinwalkers, The Navajo Mister, TV's Sons of Anarchy, and
Speaker 2: also TV's Dark Wins.
Speaker 3: The character George is the scout who works at the
Speaker 3: four Tier, and he is also the character who delivers
Speaker 3: the movie's core lower dump.
Speaker 2: Yes, so a minimal role, but an important one, and
Speaker 2: he's good. And then we also have Sheilia Taozi playing Martha.
Speaker 2: Born nineteen sixty. She's a monomine and Stockbridge, Munsey Native
Speaker 2: American actress whose credits include nineteen ninety two's Thunderheart, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five's Lord of Illusions, the Clive Barker film. I
Speaker 2: don't remember her from that, but that's one I've been
Speaker 2: tempted to revisit. In recent years, she pops up on
Speaker 2: TV's The X Files. She was in two thousand and
Speaker 2: two Skinwalkers and two thousand and fives Into the West.
Speaker 2: She was active from about ninety two through two thousand
Speaker 2: and five.
Speaker 3: Her character's presence is limited, but she does play a
Speaker 3: kind of central role in giving one of the core
Speaker 3: like moral exhortations in the movie. Especially it's interesting watching
Speaker 3: the movie Moll times because you might not fully understand
Speaker 3: what she's saying to Guy Pierce's character the first time
Speaker 3: you see it, and then it kind of makes more
Speaker 3: sense when you know the whole arc of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Martha and George have important roles in being
Speaker 2: the characters who have some degree of understanding of what's
Speaker 2: actually happening. They provide a certain wisdom that has thus
Speaker 2: far been elusive for the Western characters in the picture.
Speaker 2: All right, briefly getting behind the camera here, Anthony B.
Speaker 2: Richmond was a cinematographer on this Born nineteen forty two.
Speaker 2: His work goes back to the nineteen sixties and includes
Speaker 2: such films as seventy three's Don't Look Now and nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six is the Man Who Fell to Earth? Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He also worked on ninety two s Candy Man and
Speaker 2: ninety five's Tales from the Hood and apparently it's still
Speaker 2: working today.
Speaker 3: That's a good resume for a bunch of great looking films.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Nicholas Rogue connection there, And you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get into the producers, but I think there
Speaker 2: is a producer or executive producer perhaps connection to some
Speaker 2: Nicholas Rogue pictures as well. Okay, but now look, we
Speaker 2: should talk to just a little bit about the score.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, Ravenous boasts one of the most original
Speaker 2: and effective scores that I can think of, certainly from
Speaker 2: this time period, painting a rich sonic tapestry that includes
Speaker 2: discordant renditions of patriotic anthems and American frontier banjo music,
Speaker 2: some of which I've read was performed by non musicians
Speaker 2: that were gathered together for the project. You have tape loops,
Speaker 2: you have brooding primal beats, electronic distortion, in addition to
Speaker 2: some more traditional movie score flourishes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: The score is extremely varied. It's all over the place
Speaker 3: and all different kinds of genres and textures, and it
Speaker 3: comes together quite well.
Speaker 4: This is I would agree with you.
Speaker 3: The score is one of the strongest elements of the movie,
Speaker 3: which is overall very strong, and it really stands out
Speaker 3: to me. I think the music is fantastic, especially because
Speaker 3: there are so many moments where the music it seems
Speaker 3: like it doesn't quite fit in one way or another,
Speaker 3: like it doesn't fit the time period, or it doesn't
Speaker 3: fit the mood of the scene, but then it kind
Speaker 3: of does, like it just continues and then it resolves
Speaker 3: and reaches this state where it does feel right in
Speaker 3: a way that it kind of rewards your earlier trust
Speaker 3: in this tension created between sound and picture, and I
Speaker 3: don't know, it's a very interesting feeling that it creates
Speaker 3: in the film. And this is one that I would
Speaker 3: like to have music from this movie just on a record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this. It was released on CD, and I
Speaker 2: know that I either had the CD or some MP
Speaker 2: three's ripped from the CD back in the day, But
Speaker 2: as of this recording, I don't think it's available to
Speaker 2: stream anywhere aside from YouTube, as you know, probably a
Speaker 2: user upload a situation, and as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: has never been released on vinyl. It seems like this
Speaker 2: would be a no brainer for a really cool like
Speaker 2: blood red vinyl release, but I don't know how the
Speaker 2: rights for those sorts of things work. Apparently the music
Speaker 2: here was so the music here is a joint composition
Speaker 2: of two different musicians, though it's sometimes a tangled web
Speaker 2: to try to figure out which one did what. Apparently
Speaker 2: it was ultimately like a sixty forty split, and the
Speaker 2: credit order depends on whether you're looking at the film
Speaker 2: or the published album. But the two gentlemen involved here
Speaker 2: are Damon Alburn and Michael Nyman. Damon Alburn born nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight is, of course the illustrious English musician best
Speaker 2: known for his work with the British band Blur, who
Speaker 2: had a string of hits that I mostly know from
Speaker 2: their inclusion in various DJ mixes from the nineties. But
Speaker 2: then he would go on to be the key creative
Speaker 2: force and lead vocalist on the Guerrillas project. I believe
Speaker 2: his only other film score or soundtrack work is a
Speaker 2: two thousand and one film called one Oh one Reykivic.
Speaker 2: That's another collaboration, So really not much that's directly oriented
Speaker 2: outside of that and ravenous, but he's worked in all
Speaker 2: manner of musical projects, including things like operas, throughout the
Speaker 2: course of his career. Yeah, if nothing else, you're familiar
Speaker 2: with Gorillas, and yeah, his work is fabulous.
Speaker 3: There are actually moments in the movie where I don't
Speaker 3: know if he's using exactly the same electronic instruments or voicings,
Speaker 3: but there are moments where I hear bits of the
Speaker 3: first Gorillas album. Oh like there's a kind of electronic
Speaker 3: piano tone used in a loop throughout the hit their
Speaker 3: hit Clint Eastwood that I hear that same tone in
Speaker 3: the soundtrack here, and there's just stuff like that that
Speaker 3: feels very familiar to Gorilla's fans.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that would make sense now. As for Michael
Speaker 2: Nyman born nineteen forty four, English composer, pianist, filmmaker as
Speaker 2: well in his own right. His best received scores in
Speaker 2: addition to this one include his work on nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine's To Cook the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight's Gatica, two thousand's The End of the Affair,
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen's The Piano. His other scores include nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one's Prospero's Books, ninety four is mesmer In nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: six is the Ogre? All right?
Speaker 4: Is it time to talk about the plot?
Speaker 2: Yes, let's do so. Okay.
Speaker 3: We get a couple of epigraphs right at the start.
Speaker 3: One is a quote attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche that says
Speaker 3: he that fights with monsters should look to it that
Speaker 3: he himself does not become a monster. The relationship of
Speaker 3: that to the plot will become apparent as we talk more.
Speaker 3: And then you get a second quote that comes in,
Speaker 3: which is attributed to anonymous and it is eat me.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 2: I like this, but this also maybe feels like a
Speaker 2: late studio attempt to sort of try and control how
Speaker 2: people are going to consume this picture. But I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly whose choice this was. I don't know it
Speaker 2: still works.
Speaker 3: Is this the chef coming out and telling you how
Speaker 3: to eat your food?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But overall I love this because we're instantly hit with
Speaker 2: that squeaky, perhaps non musician frontier band rendition of the
Speaker 2: American patriotic song Hail Columbia, which sounds fabulous here, but
Speaker 2: when you look up the lyrics it's pretty it fits
Speaker 2: pretty well to what we're about to see. Hail Columbia,
Speaker 2: Happy Land, Hail Ye Heroes, heaven born band who fought
Speaker 2: and bled in Freedom's cause, Who fought and bled in
Speaker 2: Freedom's cause.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we start with, of course, that kind of music,
Speaker 3: it's patriotic, military marching band kind of music. And we
Speaker 3: see a waving American flag and that with fewer stars
Speaker 3: though than the flag.
Speaker 4: You're used to, because this is the eighteen forties.
Speaker 3: And then we see a banquet hall with a long table,
Speaker 3: bunch of place settings, patriotic regalia and it's lined by
Speaker 3: officers in full uniform, so this is some kind of ceremony.
Speaker 3: And we hear a voice saying for heroism beyond the
Speaker 3: call of duty, for successfully infiltrating the enemy's ranks and
Speaker 3: securing victory independently with cunning and honor. And we see
Speaker 3: Guy Pierce here in uniform as Captain John Boyd, and
Speaker 3: he is ready to receive a medal for his meritorious service.
Speaker 3: We also get a glimpse of John Spencer as the
Speaker 3: general presiding over this ceremony. This is General Slawson, and
Speaker 3: then we cut back to Boyd looking kind of uneasy
Speaker 3: as we get a sudden flashback to the midst of battle,
Speaker 3: so we see him in a very different place. There's
Speaker 3: gunshots ringing out on this hillside, smoke everywhere. This is
Speaker 3: supposed to be the Mexican American War, so it's a
Speaker 3: Mexican kind of landscape. And then Guy Pearce is kind
Speaker 3: of falling to his knees in the middle of the
Speaker 3: battlefield as if his strength has left him, and of
Speaker 3: course we get a title telling us it's the Mexican
Speaker 3: American War.
Speaker 4: The year is eighteen forty seven.
Speaker 3: Kaplin says a blessing, and then all of the officers
Speaker 3: here at this banquet sit down at their places at
Speaker 3: the long table, and they dig in and the meal
Speaker 3: appears to be steak and nothing else, not even a
Speaker 3: little salad, baked potato, some cream, spinach, nothing. But of
Speaker 3: course then I remember that this film takes place before
Speaker 3: vegetables were invented.
Speaker 2: I was reminded of that in this of a later
Speaker 2: film two thousand and sevens There Will be Blood, in
Speaker 2: which Daniel day Lewis's character Daniel Plainview, at one point
Speaker 2: he's in a restaurant with his son and he orders
Speaker 2: quote two steaks, a whiskey, and water for him, And
Speaker 2: we never get to actually see that meal. But I
Speaker 2: always I had a false memory that I had seen it,
Speaker 2: because I just imagine it coming out just like that,
Speaker 2: just two steaks, no vegetables, one glass of whiskey, one
Speaker 2: glass of water. Though I believe there is a later
Speaker 2: key scene in which plain View is enjoying a plate
Speaker 2: of just steak.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know steak, how steak how worked
Speaker 3: back then, maybe that was a more normal kind of
Speaker 3: meal to eat, but I no, I have to imagine
Speaker 3: even back then people would probably want some more variety.
Speaker 3: You want some some starch, some sides, some vegetables, something
Speaker 3: in there, like just a plate of steak.
Speaker 2: The last time I went to a like certified steak
Speaker 2: restaurant before I gave up steak, I do remember it
Speaker 2: being a situation where you order the steak and then
Speaker 2: you have to pay extra for anything else, any sides,
Speaker 2: which kind of I mean, I guess the idea is
Speaker 2: that that's just how it's priced out and all. Maybe
Speaker 2: that's tradition, but it also kind of felt like like, oh,
Speaker 2: if you want to get anything in addition to the meat,
Speaker 2: you better pay for it. If you're paying extra for that, buddy,
Speaker 2: the steak stands alone. Yeah, I think that it sort.
Speaker 3: Of makes sense, like because you can choose, Like you
Speaker 3: get to pick your sides all the carts, so you
Speaker 3: pick your favorite. So it's not just like you know, oh,
Speaker 3: this is what comes with it. But but yeah, I
Speaker 3: see what you're saying there. You know, the cream spinach
Speaker 3: is the classic steakhouse side. I feel like at least
Speaker 3: in that I don't know how far back that tradition goes,
Speaker 3: but I think even in the eighteen forties, you got
Speaker 3: to give him some cream spinach or something.
Speaker 2: In this case, they were not able to requisition some
Speaker 2: cream spinach for the troops.
Speaker 3: So everybody noisily digs into their steak and nothing else,
Speaker 3: and you can really just hear them making sounds, like
Speaker 3: the movie plays up the disgustingness of the eating noises,
Speaker 3: and it's like nom nam. And as this happens, Boyd
Speaker 3: is sitting there the only person not eating. All his
Speaker 3: peers are shoveling the meat into their mouths, and you
Speaker 3: can see him feeling anxiety, like his breathing is shallow,
Speaker 3: and he's looking around nervously. And then they also show
Speaker 3: Boyd's plate.
Speaker 4: Which looks disgusting.
Speaker 3: It's got this gross looking gray cut of I think
Speaker 3: this is beef shank, which also is confusing because that
Speaker 3: is not typically prepared as a steak that's going to
Speaker 3: be tough as rubber. If you need shank, you have
Speaker 3: to cook it a long time, like in a stew
Speaker 3: or something. So it's just like a steak of beef
Speaker 3: shank sitting in a puddle of juice that has clearly
Speaker 3: been modified to look less like regular steak juices and
Speaker 3: more like fresh red blood.
Speaker 4: It looks like thick and bright red.
Speaker 3: Here Boyd has another flashback to battle, this time too
Speaker 3: lying pinned down on the ground in a pile of
Speaker 3: dead bodies, covered in blood, gasping for breath, and eventually
Speaker 3: the association overwhelms him. He bolts up, gets up from
Speaker 3: the banquet table, runs outside, and vomits. And then we
Speaker 3: get the title ravenous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this is where that unsettling banjo
Speaker 2: music begins to kick in a ditty that will continue
Speaker 2: to hear over and over again throughout the picture. So really,
Speaker 2: in every key moment in the film, the music is
Speaker 2: right there, amping everything up and at times like subtly
Speaker 2: twisting your expectations. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the next thing we see is John Spencer as
Speaker 3: the General, giving Boyd a real dressing down.
Speaker 4: In private.
Speaker 3: He tells Boyd that he is not actually a hero
Speaker 3: and he wants him as far away from his company
Speaker 3: as possible. So Boyd is sent away on a new
Speaker 3: assignment to a remote frontier fort in California called Fort Spencer,
Speaker 3: and we see Boyd in a few little scenes making
Speaker 3: his journey across a background of these huge, black, snow
Speaker 3: covered mountains. I think these are supposed to be the
Speaker 3: Sierra Nevadas and millions of acres of dark green forest
Speaker 3: just this wild landscape. So Fort Spencer is sparsely occupied.
Speaker 3: It's this outpost in a meadow in view of the mountains,
Speaker 3: built mostly of wood, surrounded by palisade wall, and the
Speaker 3: accommodations are pretty grungy. Boyd gets shown his quarters. He
Speaker 3: sort of like tests the give of the bedroll and
Speaker 3: then looks at it, looks at himself in this dim
Speaker 3: spotted mirror. In this sequence, we also briefly meet the
Speaker 3: character Martha played by Shila Tauci, and this is a
Speaker 3: Native American woman who works at the fort and she
Speaker 3: brings boyds and blankets here. Eventually, Boyd has to go
Speaker 3: for a meeting with the commander of the fort, Colonel Hart,
Speaker 3: who is at least at first portrayed as kindly, mild
Speaker 3: mannered and a bit odd. We see him dressed up
Speaker 3: with a large blanket or cloak kind of covering his uniform,
Speaker 3: and he's often like this when we see him.
Speaker 4: He's got something kind.
Speaker 3: Of draped over him that just turns him into a
Speaker 3: kind of mass, and he's wearing what looks like two
Speaker 3: different pairs of eyeglasses at the same time, one set
Speaker 3: up on the bridge of his nose and another down
Speaker 3: near the tip. I guess for reading. I don't understand
Speaker 3: if that was like a thing people commonly did back then.
Speaker 2: Or but I don't know. I haven't caught myself doing
Speaker 2: that with my own reading glasses.
Speaker 3: Yet it does contribute to making him seem kind of odd.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I have to back that up. I do
Speaker 2: frequently find myself painting miniatures with a pair of reading
Speaker 2: glasses and my magnification loops, so I have essentially done
Speaker 2: this a time or two. So maybe that's what's up.
Speaker 2: As we learn like his passion is reading various texts,
Speaker 2: reading books in their original language, so who knows. Sometimes
Speaker 2: maybe he has to really bust up the optics in
Speaker 2: order to handle certain font sizes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so when BOYD gets in, he's like trying to
Speaker 3: frustratedly pry into a walnut with a knife and this
Speaker 3: is unsuccessful. So he's telling Boyd about what you were
Speaker 3: talking about, how he fights the boredom of the outpost
Speaker 3: by reading these old texts in the original languages. And
Speaker 3: then he goes and gets this giant leather bound book
Speaker 3: from the shelf and uses it to smash his walnuts open.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's a kind of implied joke here that,
Speaker 3: like he tells himself the way he fights the frontier
Speaker 3: boredom is through reading these ancient tomes, but really the
Speaker 3: way he fights the boredom is through eating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, possibly it's there's a strong time enough at
Speaker 2: last vibe to this character, you know, h like he
Speaker 2: is like everyone here. He's an outcast, but he's found
Speaker 2: the place where he can mostly just set around and read.
Speaker 3: Hart asks Boyd if he has a hobby, and Boyd
Speaker 3: says swimming. Probably not much opportunity for swimming here in
Speaker 3: the mountains. Heart explains a bit about the history of
Speaker 3: the ford. It was originally a Spanish mission. Now it
Speaker 3: serves as a way station for travelers moving through the
Speaker 3: Sierra Nevadas, and he says, of course, there are very
Speaker 3: few travelers in the winter, so the fort only has
Speaker 3: minimal staff for the season. And then we get a
Speaker 3: brief introduction to each of them. There's private Toffler who
Speaker 3: is very religious. This is Jeremy Davies. We see him
Speaker 3: praying before meals and like heaving wooden crosses up to
Speaker 3: the sky. He's also in many scenes trying to compose
Speaker 3: a hymn. You can see him working on the melody
Speaker 3: and the lyrics.
Speaker 2: It's not coming together.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We see Major Knox played by Steven Spinilla, who likes
Speaker 3: to drink. That's his main character trait. He likes the
Speaker 3: whiskey bottle. He used to be a veterinarian, so he
Speaker 3: is the fort's medic. We see Private Reich played by
Speaker 3: Neil McDonough, who is the tough guy, and there's this
Speaker 3: brief flash of him standing naked up to the waist
Speaker 3: in a mountain stream, surrounded by snow, and he's just
Speaker 3: screaming and flexing his muscles.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, this is some troubled masculinity here.
Speaker 4: I am hard man.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And then of course there's George played by Joseph Running Fox,
Speaker 3: who is Martha's brother. He's a Washo scout. And then
Speaker 3: there is Private Cleaves played by David Arquette. Hart calls
Speaker 3: him the over medicated Private Cleaves. He likes drugs and
Speaker 3: he's the cook. We get a short little dinner scene
Speaker 3: with everyone assembled. The vibes are pretty cursed, especially since
Speaker 3: Cleves is like seized with crazy laughter at apparently nothing
Speaker 3: the whole time. And then we get some more of
Speaker 3: Boyd's backstory. We like flashback to what happened during the war,
Speaker 3: and we learned the truth. The truth was Boyd was
Speaker 3: in the middle of battle and he became so terrified
Speaker 3: that he froze, and he just laid down on the
Speaker 3: field and pretended to be dead while his men were
Speaker 3: slaughtered all around him. And then after the battle was over,
Speaker 3: the enemy came and collected the bodies from the field
Speaker 3: and put them in a cart. Boyd was at the
Speaker 3: bottom of the cart with the blood of his commanding
Speaker 3: officer running down his face and into his mouth. Then
Speaker 3: he says, after this he had a change of heart.
Speaker 3: Something came over him while he was lying at the
Speaker 3: bottom of that cart, and he regained his courage, and
Speaker 3: he sprung from the pile of bodies, and he single
Speaker 3: handedly captured the enemy command And this was the act
Speaker 3: that won him his commendation for heroism. But when General
Speaker 3: Slawson found out that this whole thing started with the
Speaker 3: dreadful act of cowardice playing dead on the battlefield, he
Speaker 3: decided to punish Boyd by.
Speaker 4: Sending him out here to California.
Speaker 3: So back in the present, it is winter time, snow
Speaker 3: is falling, and Heart sends Cleaves and Martha out on
Speaker 3: a journey to the nearest trading post to get the
Speaker 3: stuff you need salt, pork and flour and all that.
Speaker 3: And it's going to be a three day journey. So
Speaker 3: it's only the rest of the crew there left at
Speaker 3: the fort, and while they're gone, we see Heart and
Speaker 3: Boyd bonding sharing some bourbon. There's an interesting little moment
Speaker 3: where Heart talks about how he wanted to escape the
Speaker 3: world by coming here, but now he wants to escape
Speaker 3: this place. Quote frightening thing about escape is the chance
Speaker 3: you might end up someplace worse. I don't know if
Speaker 3: this is one of the major themes of the movie.
Speaker 3: I have to think about it, but it is a
Speaker 3: little interesting in the context of the story, that the
Speaker 3: observation that we can be deceived into thinking that everything
Speaker 3: would be better if we could just change some particular
Speaker 3: set of external circumstances, like where we are, what our
Speaker 3: job is, or what we're doing, or something like that,
Speaker 3: but that sometimes, maybe sometimes that is really the problem,
Speaker 3: but a lot of times it's not. Sometimes you manage
Speaker 3: that change and discover that wasn't actually the problem, and
Speaker 3: your new circumstance is not actually the solution. The new
Speaker 3: circumstance is something you once again desire to escape.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think that idea does weave itself rather
Speaker 2: nicely through many aspects of the plot.
Speaker 3: But this moment is suddenly interrupted by a boo scare outside.
Speaker 3: Through a frosted window, Boyd sees a figure in black
Speaker 3: looking in at them from the cold. So the soldiers
Speaker 3: run outside and they find a man collapsed in the snow,
Speaker 3: apparently dying of hypothermia, and they bring him inside and
Speaker 3: they're able to warm.
Speaker 4: Him up and save his life.
Speaker 3: The next day, the man wakes up and he looks
Speaker 3: to me surprisingly healthy. He introduces himself as F. W. Colhoun,
Speaker 3: servant of God, and he's I don't know, like you
Speaker 3: get to look at him, and like he looks like
Speaker 3: pretty well fed, Like he looks like he's doing great.
Speaker 2: He's worth noting to hear that both Calhoun and Boyd
Speaker 2: they both kind of look like Jesus, you know. They're
Speaker 2: both shaggy, long hair and either a beard or a goate.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Calhoun explains that he had been stuck in the
Speaker 3: mountains for three months before he found the fort three
Speaker 3: months without food, and heart is incredulous at this, but
Speaker 3: Colhoun clarifies. He says, I said three months without food,
Speaker 3: not three months with nothing to eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's going to explain. But you also get
Speaker 2: the idea here that that's all he really needed to say,
Speaker 2: Like everyone knows what he means by that. Everyone's familiar
Speaker 2: with the idea of survival cannibalism.
Speaker 3: So here Colhoun launches into his backstory and he gives
Speaker 3: a whole monologue. I'm not going to quote the entire
Speaker 3: thing here, but basically he tells a story of how
Speaker 3: he was part of a traveling party with five other
Speaker 3: people and there was a guide. They had, a military
Speaker 3: man named Colonel Ives, who he calls a detestable man,
Speaker 3: a disastrous guide, who professed to know a new, shorter
Speaker 3: route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But in fact, it
Speaker 3: turns out they took the route and then they got
Speaker 3: stuck in a snowstorm in the winter, and they were
Speaker 3: stuck in a cave and they couldn't get out. This,
Speaker 3: of course, mirrors real incidents in history, like the quote
Speaker 3: shortcut that was taken by the members of the Donner Party.
Speaker 3: This was a path that others had taken in the past,
Speaker 3: but basically the Donner Party, when they took a different
Speaker 3: path through the Sierra Nevadas, got delayed and then got
Speaker 3: stuck up in the mountains in the winter. So he
Speaker 3: describes them getting stuck in this cave, and then Calhoun says, quote,
Speaker 3: we had run out of food. We ate the oxen,
Speaker 3: all of the horses, even my own dog, and that
Speaker 3: lasted us about a month. After that, we turned to
Speaker 3: our belts, shoes, any roots we could dig up, but
Speaker 3: you know, there's no real nourishment in those. We remained famished.
Speaker 3: The day that Jones died, I was out collecting wood.
Speaker 3: He had expired from malnourishment, and when I returned, the
Speaker 3: others were cooking his legs for dinner. Would I have
Speaker 3: stopped it had I been there, I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I must say when I stepped inside that cave the
Speaker 3: smell of meat cooking, I thanked the Lord. I thanked
Speaker 3: the Lord, and then things got out of hand. And
Speaker 3: he goes and he goes on to describe how he
Speaker 3: you know, only ate you know, the meat from the
Speaker 3: people who had died naturally, and he ate sparingly. But
Speaker 3: the others something changed in them, something came over them
Speaker 3: and they had to eat.
Speaker 4: Especially Ives.
Speaker 3: Ives became insane and he just kept killing other people
Speaker 3: from the cave so he could eat them. And at
Speaker 3: last Calhoun says that his courage failed him and he
Speaker 3: fled the cave and he wandered out and eventually came
Speaker 3: across this fort. But the way the story trails off,
Speaker 3: it is alleged here that Colonel Ives is still alive
Speaker 3: up in the cave with at least one other person,
Speaker 3: innocent person stuck up there with him, a woman named McCready.
Speaker 3: Is she still alive as far as Calhoun knows, possibly
Speaker 3: she is. So Heart decides, based on the story that
Speaker 3: they immediately have to send out a rescue party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody really wants to go, but Heart is you know,
Speaker 2: he's dedicated to what is right here, and he says,
Speaker 2: it's our job, it's our job. We have to do it.
Speaker 2: There's no choice.
Speaker 3: So everybody's getting ready to leave. But George comes up
Speaker 3: to Heart and Boyd and stops them to warn them
Speaker 3: about something. And it's based on Calhoun's story what he
Speaker 3: wants to warn them about is the wind to go
Speaker 3: being spoken of by some of.
Speaker 4: The people of the north.
Speaker 3: In reality, I believe the Windigo legend comes from Algonquin folklore,
Speaker 3: which would have been further north and east. But here
Speaker 3: George explains and Heart translates for Boyd. The gist of
Speaker 3: it is a man eats another's flesh, usually the flesh
Speaker 3: of an enemy, and in doing so he steals the
Speaker 3: man's strength, his essence, his spirit, His hunger becomes insatiable.
Speaker 3: The more he eats, the more he wants to and
Speaker 3: the more he eats, the stronger he becomes. And Heart
Speaker 3: is like, George, people don't still do that, do they?
Speaker 3: And George responds by telling him that white man eats
Speaker 3: the body of Jesus Christ every Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he flips the the hide that he's been
Speaker 2: reading this sof ofv and it has Christian iconography on
Speaker 2: the other side. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's a nice moment.
Speaker 3: So the party sets out on the rescue mission. The
Speaker 3: party is Heart, Boyd, Reich, Toffler, George, and the stranger Colhoun.
Speaker 3: They pack up provisions, they bundle up, and they head
Speaker 3: into the mountains. And so we get a little montage
Speaker 3: of their journey. I like one little moment on the
Speaker 3: journey where Colhoun helps Toffler find a rhyme when he's
Speaker 3: composing as him like, he says, he ends a line
Speaker 3: with the word servant, and he's going like lervent deervant,
Speaker 3: and Calhoun is like fervent, And Toffler is very very
Speaker 3: helped by this. He's appreciative. But anyway, they are making
Speaker 3: their way along through the mountains, and at one point
Speaker 3: they stop in this high mountain pass in the snow,
Speaker 3: and Boyd kind of questions Colhoun. He's clearly he's curious.
Speaker 3: He says, when you ate the flesh of the man, afterwards,
Speaker 3: you said your hunger was different, more wanton. Did you
Speaker 3: feel physically different, stronger? And Colhoun kind of mildly says,
Speaker 3: I seem to recall something like that, feeling some kind
Speaker 3: of virility. He's being very reticent about it now, but
Speaker 3: this will become funnier in retrospect. Also, I just have
Speaker 3: to comment on everybody's nineteenth century sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: They've all these shaded goggles of various kinds that look like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, they look like vin Diesel and pitch black.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Carlisle here reminds me a little bit of Kurt
Speaker 2: Russell and the thing actually with the sunglasses and to
Speaker 2: a certain extent with the hat. He does not have
Speaker 2: the full hat situation going on.
Speaker 3: But still so somewhere in here Toffler falls down and
Speaker 3: gets injured, and so he's got like a bloody wound
Speaker 3: that they have to bandage up. And later that night,
Speaker 3: after Toffler's injury, everybody's asleep in their tent when suddenly
Speaker 3: Toffler comes away can he starts screaming, and it's dark
Speaker 3: and you can't see what's happening. But then somebody lights
Speaker 3: a lamp and Toffler is backed up against one side
Speaker 3: of the tent, terrified, and on the other side of
Speaker 3: the tent is Calhoun, looking pale and kind of crazed
Speaker 3: with blood on his lips. And Toffler says he was
Speaker 3: licking me. And this is interesting because rob if you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Robert Carlisle plays Calhoun very straightforwardly
Speaker 3: before this, like there's nothing to indicate really that they
Speaker 3: would should have any concern about him. He seems like
Speaker 3: a wronged, victimized man who is frightened and in search
Speaker 3: of justice, Like there's nothing about him that reads as abnormal,
Speaker 3: but that starts falling apart on this journey. So Calhoun
Speaker 3: pleads with hard On the others. He's apologizing. He says
Speaker 3: he was having a nightmare and then he woke up
Speaker 3: to find himself crouched over Toffler licking the wound, and
Speaker 3: then he asks them to restrain.
Speaker 4: Him for the rest of the journey. So they do.
Speaker 3: They tie his hands, and then the next day they
Speaker 3: come to the cave, the cave where there should be
Speaker 3: ives and missus McCready and I still have strong memories
Speaker 3: of how freaky this scene was the first time I
Speaker 3: saw it, Such a powerful sense of unease and menace
Speaker 3: and things just steadily becoming weirder and more chaotic by
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the editing is superb here. The music is
Speaker 2: incredible building that tension. We get these kind of like
Speaker 2: rumbling rhythmic beats, like there's some primal force welling up
Speaker 2: through the whole situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And so as they approach the cave, Calhoun, who had
Speaker 3: been again, he was fairly composed and sympathetic at first,
Speaker 3: I mean, frightened, but that's all he starts acting increasingly erratic,
Speaker 3: not just afraid, but like quaking and moving his body
Speaker 3: in bizarre ways and making these weird little like yipping
Speaker 3: and whimpering noises again at first like he's afraid, but
Speaker 3: then just more and more weird, like some kind of
Speaker 3: trapped wolverine that's tipping from fear into a kind of
Speaker 3: threatening playfulness. And so Reike and Boyd go into the
Speaker 3: cave to investigate, and everybody else waits outside, And in
Speaker 3: this scene, Reich makes his contempt for Boyd clear while
Speaker 3: they're searching, like obviously he views Boyd as gutless and
Speaker 3: unworthy of command. And inside the cave they find some
Speaker 3: kind of pit, like a natural ubliet, and they go
Speaker 3: down and investigate this, and what they find inside is
Speaker 3: too many skeletons, too many skeletons to magic Colhoun's story,
Speaker 3: And the piles of clothes inside include a military uniform.
Speaker 3: So if the colonel ives of the story was not
Speaker 3: the eater and was instead eaten, who was the eater?
Speaker 3: And then the guys inside the cave are like, oh no,
Speaker 3: and they scream it's a trap.
Speaker 2: And this whole cave. To drive this home, this is
Speaker 2: This is like a wonderful like cannibal cavern situation. We're
Speaker 2: right out of an episode of Tales from the Crypt.
Speaker 4: Disgusting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the skeletons all have this kind of melted fat
Speaker 3: looking thing over them, like they look they're kind of waxy.
Speaker 3: It's really gross. And then so Boyd and Reich rush
Speaker 3: back outside, but Colhoun is already on the attack. He
Speaker 3: first he starts frantically digging in the dirt outside the
Speaker 3: cave and he digs up a knife. He attacks and
Speaker 3: stabs heart. A heart lays on the ground dying. He
Speaker 3: shoots George, and then he chases Toffler out into the woods.
Speaker 4: And this is where I was.
Speaker 3: Saying, Calhoun, he gets into full like late sequel Freddy
Speaker 3: Krueger mode. He is having fun, Like he tries to
Speaker 3: shoot Toffler but the gun jams and he goes that
Speaker 3: is so annoying. And then he's like playing with him.
Speaker 3: He's brandishing the knife at him and kind of dancing
Speaker 3: and he says run run. So the chase breaks out
Speaker 3: and interesting music choices here once again. The music at
Speaker 3: first in this chase is not like a threatening dissonant jabs.
Speaker 3: It's not minor key chase music. It's a hodown. It's
Speaker 3: like a lively, upbeat major key fiddle and banjo music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you don't expect it to go with this direction,
Speaker 2: but it, you know, looking at it, this was the
Speaker 2: obvious choice. Like it breaks the tension and we get
Speaker 2: to go in a different direction here.
Speaker 3: So Boyd and Reike run after them again, even though
Speaker 3: Boyd is the officer and Reich is the private. Reich
Speaker 3: is giving all the orders and Boyd is lagging behind,
Speaker 3: barely complying. They find Toffler's body disemboweled. Colhoun is a
Speaker 3: bit like Jason vorhees here, seemingly disappearing and reappearing through
Speaker 3: the woods, kind of an arcane trickster. At one point
Speaker 3: here Boyd tries to chicken out. He's like, I'm going back,
Speaker 3: I've got to go back, but Reike kind of bullies
Speaker 3: him into staying. Reike is killed by Calhoun with a
Speaker 3: knife to the chest and he falls off a cliff.
Speaker 3: Boyd panics, and then to escape Colhoun, he jumps.
Speaker 4: Off the cliff.
Speaker 3: He survives the fall, but he falls into a bunch
Speaker 3: of trees, breaks his leg, and then tumbles along with
Speaker 3: Reich's body into a hidden pit in the earth covered
Speaker 3: by pine branches, and then he falls down in there
Speaker 3: along with Reich's body, and time begins to pass. So
Speaker 3: we get a little montage showing kind of I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe days going by, and we see Colhoun transformed into
Speaker 3: a free roaming master of the wilderness. Now he's just
Speaker 3: sitting on a shoal of pebbles in the middle of
Speaker 3: a river, eating lustily from a big joint of human meat.
Speaker 3: And then later he's skipping rocks in the stream with
Speaker 3: his shirt covered in blood and blood all in his beard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just loving life.
Speaker 3: At this point, back in the pit, BOYD sets his bone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so warning folks, there is a self bone setting scene
Speaker 3: in the film. And it seems like he's clearly done
Speaker 3: for unless he could get some nourishment. And there's Reich
Speaker 3: right there.
Speaker 2: And I love right how Right's body is presented here.
Speaker 2: Reich has like just wide open dead eyes, like just
Speaker 2: continuing to judge him for his cowardice.
Speaker 3: These horrible cloudy eyes, but this horrible, huge grin, this
Speaker 3: dead rictus, and he's.
Speaker 2: Covered in dried, like blackened blood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's interesting to see how Boyd works his
Speaker 3: way up to it like it starts with him taking
Speaker 3: Reke's coat off his body because he's cold.
Speaker 4: He's like, can I borrow this?
Speaker 3: You don't need it, and then he's like, well, I
Speaker 3: already took the coat, and he gets the knife, and
Speaker 3: it's mostly implied what he does next, But sometime later
Speaker 3: we see Boyd emerge from the pit somehow healed, like
Speaker 3: he's good, he's all right enough to walk, and he
Speaker 3: makes the track back to the fort. When he arrives,
Speaker 3: he's received and taken in by Martha and Cleaves, who
Speaker 3: have returned from their trip, and knocks who was passed
Speaker 3: out drunk the whole time there while everybody else was
Speaker 3: doing the things in the previous scenes. So there's a
Speaker 3: scene here where Boyd goes to Martha. Now he's clearly
Speaker 3: he's turned on to the idea of the Wind to Go,
Speaker 3: and he goes to her to ask if she knows
Speaker 3: anything about it, can it be stopped. She gives a
Speaker 3: different kind of answer than he was expecting. She says
Speaker 3: the windigo always takes, never gives, and to stop the
Speaker 3: Wind to Go, she says, you must give yourself.
Speaker 4: You have to die.
Speaker 3: Implicit in this is that she understands Boyd to be
Speaker 3: part of the wind Togo and the only way to
Speaker 3: truly beat it is to admit that you are part
Speaker 3: of it. Forsake your hunger and die.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And Boyd doesn't say I'm asking for a friend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't try to cover it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So as time goes on, General Slawson and his entourage
Speaker 3: arrived at the fort. They hear Boyd's story and they
Speaker 3: investigate the cave, but they find nothing there, no bodies,
Speaker 3: no bones. There's not a scrap of evidence to back
Speaker 3: up the story Boyd has told. And Slawson tries to
Speaker 3: get Boyd to amend his statement, but he won't anyway.
Speaker 3: General Slawson has brought in a new commanding officer to
Speaker 3: serve as a replacement for Heart. It's a colonel. Step
Speaker 3: into the room, colonel, let's see your new Captain Boyd here,
Speaker 3: And it is a colonel named Ives. Uh, oh, it's him.
Speaker 3: It's Colhoun. He's all cleaned up now he's in uniform.
Speaker 3: And it turns out Colhoun is Ives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gone is the is the prospector's beard and the
Speaker 2: crazy eyes. Now we have this like steely calm that
Speaker 2: is over him. He looks very professional. He has establishment
Speaker 2: cannibalism at this point.
Speaker 3: Yes, so Boyd immediately he freaks out and he tries
Speaker 3: to tell everyone, but the story doesn't check out because
Speaker 3: in his story he got a shot off on Colhoun,
Speaker 3: like he shot him in the shoulder. So they're like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: if your story's true, he would have a scar. So
Speaker 3: they look on Ives body and there are no scars.
Speaker 3: They find nothing, just like well fed, unblemish skin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Boyd's stock here. He continues to go down
Speaker 2: in the generals the general's.
Speaker 4: View here, that's right.
Speaker 3: So everybody settles in with the new colonel. There's like
Speaker 3: a dinner scene where they're all having ribs except Cleaves.
Speaker 3: Discovers that neither Colonel Ives nor Boyd will eat meat.
Speaker 3: Ives never eats meat at all, since he can't forget
Speaker 3: it used to be an animal, and Boyd says he
Speaker 3: will only eat meet as a last resort. There's a
Speaker 3: later scene where Boyd is looking out the window at
Speaker 3: Cleaves as he's setting up some kind of sculpture like
Speaker 3: a big cow skeleton thing, and Boyd fantasizes about killing
Speaker 3: him and eating his Organs, but then Boyd kind of
Speaker 3: snaps out of it. It's like, what's going on with me?
Speaker 3: Why can't I stop thinking about eating people?
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like it's kind of a version of the
Speaker 2: Looney Tune scene where you know, one character looks at
Speaker 2: another and they just just see a giant turkey leg. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So later there's one night alone, Boyd is like he's paranoid.
Speaker 3: He's sitting outside clutching a big kitchen knife with a
Speaker 3: blanket around him, and Ives comes out. He's very suave
Speaker 3: and dapper, and he's smoking a cigarello out in the cold,
Speaker 3: and Ives breaks the tension by essentially now admitting it
Speaker 3: because they're alone. He says to Boyd, I found your
Speaker 3: private reichup there, or what was left of him you
Speaker 3: didn't finish. I can't blame you. He was tough, but
Speaker 3: then a good soldier ought to be. And then he
Speaker 3: takes a big drag out of his smoke and he says,
Speaker 3: you know, not too long ago, I couldn't do that,
Speaker 3: could barely take a breath without coughing up a pint
Speaker 3: of blood. Tuberculosis that along with fierce headaches, depression, suicidal ambition,
Speaker 3: I was in pretty horrible shape. In fact, I was
Speaker 3: on my way to a sanatorium to convalesce or more
Speaker 3: likely die, when en route, this Indian scout told me
Speaker 3: a curious story. Man eats the flesh of another, He
Speaker 3: takes the other man's strength, absorbs his spirit. Well, naturally,
Speaker 3: I just had to try it. Consequently, I ate the
Speaker 3: scout first, and you know what, he was absolutely right.
Speaker 3: I grew stronger. And then he launches into telling the
Speaker 3: wagon train story is sort of a different version of
Speaker 3: the story he told at the beginning, but now he
Speaker 3: is Colonel Ives. He manages to get people stuck in
Speaker 3: the mountain so he can eat them. He says he
Speaker 3: ate five men in three months, and he says tuberculosis vanished,
Speaker 3: as did the headaches and the black thoughts. I returned
Speaker 3: that spring, happy and healthy and virile. And here I've shifts.
Speaker 3: He shifts to kind of tempting, to being the Satan figure,
Speaker 3: tempting Boyd. He's like, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: You've done it too, you know its power, So why
Speaker 3: are you resisting? And Boyd says, what's wrong? It's wrong
Speaker 3: to eat people? But Ives mocks him. He says, morality
Speaker 3: is the last bastion of a coward. It's like a
Speaker 3: man says he cannot do something because it would be wrong.
Speaker 3: The real reason is because he's afraid. And then he
Speaker 3: keeps tempting him, like he gets a cut on his
Speaker 3: hand and he's like, sniff my blood.
Speaker 2: Mmm. It's a great state with this and a subsequent
Speaker 2: sequence are going to get a subsequent temptation segment sequence
Speaker 2: between Ives and Boyd. Just tremendous here, especially from Carlisle.
Speaker 2: Just just great acting love every the way the scenes
Speaker 2: are put together, tremendous, fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Boyd here tries to attack Ives, but they
Speaker 3: are interrupted by Martha and then by Knox, who they
Speaker 3: quickly discovered that Cleaves has been killed along with all
Speaker 3: of the horses, and Boyd is put under arrest on
Speaker 3: suspicion for that killing. So the next day Martha volunteers
Speaker 3: to make the journey by foot to San Miguel to
Speaker 3: get General Slawson for you know, I guess to come
Speaker 3: back and investigate crimes once again. So that just leaves Knox,
Speaker 3: Boyd and Ives at the fort, and so Boyd is
Speaker 3: under arrest and there's this scene where Ives is cooking
Speaker 3: a stew yeah, and Knox is like can I help,
Speaker 3: and is like, not right now, perhaps later you can contribute.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So we get a little bit of the
Speaker 2: comedy here, but they you know, they underscore it's it's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Boyd listens. So in this scene, there are
Speaker 3: things happening in the other room, and it becomes apparent
Speaker 3: that somebody in the other room has killed Knocks with
Speaker 3: his own sword. But then when the door swings open,
Speaker 3: it's not i'ves standing there. It's Colonel Heart Yep.
Speaker 2: He smiles and he says hello, Boyd, and he's covered
Speaker 2: with blood. Now he doesn't have any of his glasses on.
Speaker 2: There's a new energy to this man. It's clear that
Speaker 2: he has engaged in the cannibalism.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: So he tells the story of how he thought he
Speaker 3: was dying, but he found himself being nursed back to
Speaker 3: health in the cave by ives, and he was healed
Speaker 3: from his mortal wound because he ate man flesh. He says,
Speaker 3: by the time I regained my senses, there was no
Speaker 3: turning back.
Speaker 4: I feel terrific.
Speaker 3: So now Heart and Ives are part of a cannibal conspiracy,
Speaker 3: and Heart makes a pitch Boyd.
Speaker 2: Should join them, and this is where we get this
Speaker 2: other temptation scene that is just excellent. This is where
Speaker 2: we get another just tremendous monologue from Carlisle, and it
Speaker 2: really kind of drives home I think the central thesis
Speaker 2: of the whole picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Boyd is taken out to where Ives is.
Speaker 3: I think they're grilling outside. Maybe now are they grilling
Speaker 3: parts of Knox or butchering him? I think I don't know,
Speaker 3: They're doing some kind of cannibalism stuff outside. And Ives
Speaker 3: looks at the mountains and he says, manifest destiny, westward expansion.
Speaker 3: You know, come April, it'll all start again. Thousands of
Speaker 3: gold hungry Americans will travel over those mountains on their
Speaker 3: way to new lives, passing right through here. We won't
Speaker 3: kill indiscriminately, no, selectively. Good God, we don't want to
Speaker 3: break up families. And then oh, yeah, horrible. And then
Speaker 3: he he talks about how they want to recruit somebody else,
Speaker 3: General Slawson. They want to convert him to the religion
Speaker 3: of cannibalism because it would be useful to have somebody
Speaker 3: that powerful, right, He says, we don't wish to recruit everyone.
Speaker 3: We've got enough mouths to feed as it is. We
Speaker 3: just need a home. And this country is seeking to
Speaker 3: be whole, stretching out its arms, consuming all it can.
Speaker 4: We merely follow.
Speaker 2: Oh and that line there just gives me chills.
Speaker 3: So Boyd tries to resist them. He says he's not
Speaker 3: going to be like them, but the bids continue. Carlyle says,
Speaker 3: you're already one of us almost. You hunger for it,
Speaker 3: you just won't resign yourself to it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and we get that other line that's always
Speaker 2: stuck with me. It's not courage to resist me, Boyd,
Speaker 2: it's courage to accept me.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, But this makes me think, like, when
Speaker 3: are you really part of a conspiracy? Like when you
Speaker 3: do the crime or when you accept that doing the
Speaker 3: crime is all right?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And there's a lot to chew on here,
Speaker 2: cannibal funds aside, But yeah, it's like this idea that
Speaker 2: there is this gravity that is pulling all of them
Speaker 2: down and there is inevitability to it, And like, Boyd,
Speaker 2: you're not doing yourself any favors by fighting against the tide.
Speaker 2: You'd make things so much easier for yourself and for
Speaker 2: everyone around you, if you just gave in, if you've
Speaker 2: just accepted the world as it is, the world as
Speaker 2: we've made it, if you just accept that you're a
Speaker 2: part of it. And that, of course, has been part
Speaker 2: of Boyd's moral failing thus far. He's just proceeded through
Speaker 2: life like a thing encased in mud or almost fossilized
Speaker 2: in his environment, and has just been generally just unwilling
Speaker 2: and unable to attempt to counteract that flow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has acted upon, he does not act against.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, though he is trying to resist here. And it's
Speaker 3: interesting the way that Carlisle, the way that Ives is
Speaker 3: like papering over distinctions, Like he's like, you've already done
Speaker 3: the same as us, But Boyd hasn't unlike them. He
Speaker 3: has not killed to eat man flesh. He's just eaten
Speaker 3: of those who already died. But I think they're trying
Speaker 3: to make that transition for him easier. It's like not
Speaker 3: observing the distinction.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So then Ives tries to persuade Boyd by stabbing him.
Speaker 3: So he stabs him. He's like, all right, now you
Speaker 3: know the rules. You've either got to eat human or
Speaker 3: die from your wound. So Ives and Heart like sit
Speaker 3: around the table enjoying a major Knox stew, and at
Speaker 3: first Boyd resists, but then the pain of his wound
Speaker 3: becomes too great and his fear of death overwhelms him.
Speaker 4: And he begins to eat.
Speaker 2: I like, how Yeah, the answer hears for him to
Speaker 2: give in and eat the stew too, which is like
Speaker 2: the completely civilized version of the cannibal feast, which I
Speaker 2: don't think we've had it up into this point. It's
Speaker 2: been more like bone nawing. But here is the Santa
Speaker 2: Ties version of it, which I think is also rife
Speaker 2: with so many different interpretations when you start analyzing this picture,
Speaker 2: like here, here's the refined version of the thing you're
Speaker 2: afraid of. Give in to it become a part of
Speaker 2: this operation. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the next day, of course, Boyd is all healed up.
Speaker 3: The cannibalism does wonders, and there is a conversation between
Speaker 3: Boyd and Heart while Ives is outside. Heart talks about
Speaker 3: how he misses his books that were taking off his
Speaker 3: shelf I guess when he was presumed dead, And he
Speaker 3: muses about how even thousands of years ago, Plato and
Speaker 3: Aristotle were thinking over the same problems that they can't
Speaker 3: solve today, like what is happiness and how to get it?
Speaker 3: And Boyd says Aristotle wanted to get to truth, not happiness,
Speaker 3: and Heart kind of rebels against this. He says, I
Speaker 3: spent my whole life trying to do what I thought
Speaker 3: was right and true, and now here I am. But
Speaker 3: some cracks appear in Heart's conviction. Boyd reminds him of
Speaker 3: all the people they can cleaves knocks, and Heart kind
Speaker 3: of he fights his conscience off. He's screaming about how
Speaker 3: you have to kill to live, But Boyd eventually gets
Speaker 3: through to him, and Heart kind of collapses and decides,
Speaker 3: you're right. I don't want to go on living like this,
Speaker 3: boy do You've just got to kill me?
Speaker 2: And Boyd does this scene here, which is intercut with
Speaker 2: a few things concerning Calhoun ives and other characters. But
Speaker 2: this scene I think is pretty admirable because a lot
Speaker 2: has to happen, particularly with Heart's character, in a very
Speaker 2: short amount of time, and I think if it was
Speaker 2: done even slightly incorrectly, it would have felt really rushed
Speaker 2: as it is here, like it feels ultimately feels, you know,
Speaker 2: a bit on fast forward, but also completely earned. And
Speaker 2: I think it comes down to the direction to the
Speaker 2: performances and just the way they've cut it all together. Like,
Speaker 2: I end up completely buying it. But man, they do
Speaker 2: so much in such a short scene.
Speaker 3: Well, I I think because it comes across that Heart
Speaker 3: was also just kind of weak willed, and he was
Speaker 3: allowing Ives' confidence in the cannibalism conspiracy to sort of
Speaker 3: allow him not to consult his own soul about whether
Speaker 3: this was right. He was just like going along with
Speaker 3: the justifications that Ives gave. But now that somebody else
Speaker 3: from the outside is pressuring him, it kind of does
Speaker 3: break through the facade and the real heart comes out,
Speaker 3: and his guilt and grief are unleashed and he can't deal.
Speaker 2: With it, right, And so now the line is clearly drawn.
Speaker 2: Ives sees this happen through the blood splattered window, and
Speaker 2: so now it's gonna be a standoff between Bloyd and Ives, Right.
Speaker 3: So the rest of the movie is basically this grueling fight,
Speaker 3: this duel between Boyd and Ives. They sword fight, they slash, stab,
Speaker 3: bash across the landscape of the fort, and then they
Speaker 3: end up at the end of this fight in a
Speaker 3: bare trap together, which is just perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an enormous bear trap, Like I'm almost like
Speaker 2: Acme level of bear trap. But it feels earned and
Speaker 2: it's a surprise I think they do. We do see
Speaker 2: a bear trap earlier in the picture, so it is established.
Speaker 2: But oh when it goes off, Yeah, just get.
Speaker 3: Them both, I've says to Guy Pearce, if you die first,
Speaker 3: I am definitely going to eat you.
Speaker 4: But if I die first, what will you do?
Speaker 3: Good question, because we actually don't know at this point.
Speaker 3: Boyd's character has been portrayed as weak willed enough, and
Speaker 3: the story is bleak enough that you could believe it
Speaker 3: would end with him just embracing the cannibalism eating him
Speaker 3: and becoming win to go again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that thus far, that's how he has proceeded.
Speaker 2: Those are the choices which brought him to this moment.
Speaker 3: But Boyd does have a moral victory in the end
Speaker 3: by resisting the temptation. Ives does die first and Boyd
Speaker 3: does not chow down. He dies well. But then General
Speaker 3: Slawson arrives with his with his retinue, and they they
Speaker 3: wander in. They're looking around and he finds a stew
Speaker 3: bubbling over the fire. I guess this is still the
Speaker 3: knock stew, still left over from the day before, and
Speaker 3: he decides to taste it, and he tastes it, He's
Speaker 3: like delicious, yummy, yummy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it seems like maybe the cycle will continue
Speaker 2: with General Slawson. And then we see Martha show up
Speaker 2: and Martha finds the bodies of Boyd and ives and
Speaker 2: the bear trap and she just she sees what's happened
Speaker 2: and she runs off into the wilderness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thinking about the slaws in question, like, if he
Speaker 3: eats the stew, does he become the wind to go?
Speaker 3: Within the logic of the movie, Are you a wind
Speaker 3: to go if you don't know that you're eating human
Speaker 3: I think that's a that's a real question. Like it
Speaker 3: comes back to one of the questions that we raised earlier,
Speaker 3: like does the monstrosity arise from eating human flesh physically?
Speaker 3: Is it the physical processing of it with your digestive
Speaker 3: system even if you don't know what it is, Or
Speaker 3: is it the conscious awareness that.
Speaker 4: You are eating human flesh?
Speaker 3: Or is it the moral acceptance of yourself as one
Speaker 3: who eats human flesh? So the distinction between those last
Speaker 3: two being like being aware that you're eating human flesh,
Speaker 3: but not feeling okay about it, versus feeling like, all right,
Speaker 3: it's okay that I'm doing this, versus the final thing
Speaker 3: is killing the act of killing someone in order to
Speaker 3: get more human flesh.
Speaker 4: They're all like.
Speaker 3: Different points on a continuum, and I guess you could ask,
Speaker 3: at what point does one become the monster? And does
Speaker 3: each step kind of lead to the next step.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Yeah, the movie leaves it ambiguous,
Speaker 2: like we can I think reasonably think that, Okay, Slawson
Speaker 2: is going to eat this stuff. It tastes great. He's
Speaker 2: probably going to just really pig out on it and
Speaker 2: maybe have like a really great week. He's going to
Speaker 2: take up new hobbies, he's going to get a lot
Speaker 2: done at work. But will he be able to make
Speaker 2: the connection? And maybe he will, Maybe there's enough essentially
Speaker 2: forensic evidence at the camp that he'll realize what he
Speaker 2: ate and then start making increasingly horrific choices, but maybe not.
Speaker 2: But then also it does kind of tie into some
Speaker 2: of the questions raised, like what happens when you come
Speaker 2: along and you eat this stew and you don't know
Speaker 2: how the stew was made. It's just presented to you,
Speaker 2: and now what are you for having participated in this meal?
Speaker 3: All right, well that's ravenous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it really holds up. I think
Speaker 2: it's a great, great film that really stands out. Hard
Speaker 2: to think of another film from nineteen ninety nine that
Speaker 2: really that I keep coming back to, But this is
Speaker 2: the one. I mean, it's it's not End of Days,
Speaker 2: it's not blair Witch product product, Blair Witch Project that
Speaker 2: should have been a sequel Blair Witch product.
Speaker 3: My memory is actually that Blair Witch Project is pretty good.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think it might hold up pretty well.
Speaker 2: I think with that one it really impressed me at
Speaker 2: the time, But then we saw so much found footage
Speaker 2: material that I've just been so resistant to going back
Speaker 2: and watching anything from that year. I don't know. I
Speaker 2: look at a list of other ninety ninety nine films.
Speaker 2: That was the year we had audition. I'm in no
Speaker 2: hurry to rewatch that. But that was pretty strong as well.
Speaker 3: With that remake of The Haunting with Liam Neeson and
Speaker 3: Catherine Zeta Jones.
Speaker 2: How about that that's not on the list from the
Speaker 2: rewatch anytime soon? All Right?
Speaker 3: Does that do it for today?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We're gonna ahead and close it up here, but
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. What are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on Ravenous or other cannibal films or other
Speaker 2: films from nineteen ninety nine. It's all fair game, right in.
Speaker 2: Let us know we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: You can get this show wherever you get your podcasts.
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Speaker 2: us up. Our user name there is weird House and
Speaker 2: we have a big old list of all the movies
Speaker 2: we've watched over the years, and sometimes we get a
Speaker 2: peek ahead at what's next.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
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