“You are who you eat.” So goes the tongue-in-cheek (so to speak) tagline of Ravenous, the inexplicable black comedy by iffy directress Antonia Bird.

Set during the Mexican-American War, Ravenous starts with the promising tale of a soldier named Boyd (Pearce, from L.A. Confidential) who finds himself transferred to a remote Sierra Nevada outpost in the dead of winter. Enter Colqhoun (Carlyle), a traveller suffering from frostbite and famine... and who turns out to be, well, a bit of a cannibal.

Sadly, Ravenous delves into the predictable and silly faster than you can say “fava beans.” It’s all very kitschy, with Colqhoun developing a, well, ravenous streak in him for human flesh, resulting in the steady attrition of the outpost’s crew.

Curiously humorous performances by Davies and Arquette are welcome... until they are consumed by one character or another. But really, what’s the point of this movie? It’s not that Ravenous is offensive in the slightest. Now that we’ve digested Hannibal Lecter (so to speak), cannibalism isn’t such a taboo. Make it funny – well, try to make it funny – and it’s even less “shocking” and “controversial,” both of which Bird was clearly shooting for.

Two hours of feasting, and bah... I left the theater hungry.



Arquette, lookin' mighty tasty.