History Film / Ravenous

* ''Film/Ravenous1999''.
* ''Film/Ravenous2017''.

''Ravenous may refer to:

[[redirect:Film/Ravenous1999]]

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ravenous_film_poster_7355.jpg]]

->''"It's lonely being a cannibal. Tough making friends."''

A drama/horror/black comedy released in 1999, written by Ted Griffin and directed by Antonia Bird. Starred Creator/GuyPearce, Creator/RobertCarlyle, Creator/JeremyDavies, Creator/JeffreyJones, Creator/DavidArquette, Creator/NealMcDonough.

Lieutenant Boyd is a ShellShockedVeteran of the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar of the 1840s. Initially the Army promotes Boyd for his actions during the war and gives him a MedalOfDishonor while intending to present him as a hero, but Boyd's nerves are clearly shattered and he's unable to present the heroic facade the Army wants. The local general decides that with Boyd being useless in battle and not credible as a PropagandaHero, the best thing he can do is make sure Boyd is far, far away from the front lines and anyplace where he would draw attention. So he gives Boyd a [[ReassignedToAntarctica reassignment to Fort Spencer]], a rarely-visited and barely manned ramshackle mountain fort in the [[MiddleOfNowhereStreet Middle Of Nowhere]] that serves as a stopping point for pioneers traveling to California. When Boyd arrives the fort proves to be populated mostly by [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits drunks, misfits, layabouts, and crazies.]]

Boyd's just settling into his life of quiet failure when a rambling loon by the name of Colqhoun stumbles in with a horror story; he was part of [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty a party of six pioneers who found themselves trapped in a snowstorm. When they ran out of rations, they ate the pack animals. When those were gone, they ate their leather clothing. When those were gone, one of them starved to death. But instead of burying him... they ate him]]. Some time later, they were hungry again and found themselves looking at each other oddly...

Colqhoun tells them that when he left the remnant of the group, there was at least two others still alive, the wife of one of the pioneers and their treacherous guide, Ives, who had seemed to truly embrace cannibalism. The Colonel of the fort sets out with his ragtag soldiers to attempt a rescue, unaware of the horrors they'll find...

Essentially, it's a ''{{Wendigo}}'' story filmed with a morbid sense of humor about UsefulNotes/ManifestDestiny, IDidWhatIHadToDo, and the varied joys of BlackComedy. The soundtrack absolutely cements its ambiguous character, ranging from a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHVXAMVC53M carefree organ piece underpinned with a dissonant string part]], to a simple string dance piece which is played during a strangely funny murder scene.

Not to be confused with the unrelated [[Film/{{Ravenous2017}} 2017 film]] of the same name.

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!!This film includes examples of:

* TheAlcoholic: Major Knox.
-->'''Col. Hart''': Never found a bottle he didn't like.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Private Toffler has some very odd behaviors, including strange twitching and sometimes going mute.
* AndThisIsFor: ... my horse, right after mentioning a murder.
* AntiVillain: [[spoiler: Col. Hart at the end, when he rejects cannibalism and opts to being killed by Boyd]].
* ArsonMurderAndLifeSaving: This is how Boyd earned the backhanded promotion that landed him at Fort Spencer - he captured enemy outpost only because he freeze in combat and then played possum.
* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: Averted. ''Private'' Reich has to remind ''Captain'' Boyd not to thoughtlessly point a loaded rifle at him. A nicely subtle way of reinforcing how useless Boyd is as a soldier.
* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Fort Spencer's skeleton crew consists of three privates, one captain, one major and one colonel. There is not a single NCO. [[spoiler: Things get only weirder after two privates, the colonel and their native guide get killed, but no replacement aside new colonel is sent, even if there is already a major and a captain in place, but a dire shortage of rank and file - those three officers command a ''single'' private]]. Normally, a captain commands a ''company'', which is roughtly 120 men. For given period, Boyd alone should be made a commanding officer of Fort Spencer, especially since it's wintertime skeleton crew.
* AuthorTract: The writer, the director, and the leading actor are vegetarians, and take every chance they get to show their disgust of meat. A constant theme is comparing the flesh of animals to the flesh of humans. However, [[TropesAreNotBad the honesty of that disgust enhances the horror beautifully]]. And, to be fair, that stew looks ''really good''.
* BeingEvilSucks: Boyd definitely thinks so [[spoiler: as does Hart in the end]].
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Colonel Ives kills his way through the cast of the film]].
* BlackComedy: The film has certain elements of it, especially when you add in SoundtrackDissonance during some horrific scenes.
* BlackDudeDiesFirst:
** The first member of Colqhoun's party to bite it in the flashback is the token black "[[UnusualEuphemism servant]]".
** [[spoiler: Also George, a resident native, dies before any of the other (white) main characters. Although another character, who was white, had already been mortally wounded and was on death's door... but then he also wound up not dying because Ives converted him to cannibalism, so...]]
* BodyHorror: The scene in the pit involving Boyd's broken leg is rather painful to watch
* BuriedInAPileOfCorpses: Boyd plays dead in one for a time, resulting in him ending up in the enemy base and singlehandly capturing it from the inside.
* CannibalismSuperpower:
** In the film, the {{Wendigo}} myth is true; eating human flesh grants SuperStrength, a HealingFactor, and [[{{Panacea}} cures all diseases]]. It also [[HorrorHunger acts as a drug that makes heroin seem about as addictive as artificial sweetener.]]
** [[spoiler: Ives also implies that cannibals become sexually potent, though that might just be him making up for lost time after regaining his health. He was in ''bad'' shape before he started eating people]].
* CassandraTruth: Boyd ends up with this problem when he tries to warn the others about Ives. Everyone still alive at the fort [[spoiler: never saw Ives when he appeared, calling himself Colqhoun]], and Boyd is a newcomer they barely know who's acting crazy. If anything, ''Boyd'' winds up being the target of their suspicions.
* ClassicalAntiHero: Boyd is the main character, but he's an unequivocal coward who's not exactly hero material.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: The drunken sot Major Knox knocks Boyd out with a single punch at one point. Later [[spoiler:when Colonel Hart is commenting on the stew they made out of Knox]], he comments that Knox "was stronger than he looked". It didn't do Knox much good, however. Note the use of past tense.
* DeadpanSnarker: Hart most of the time, though he's revealed to be more StepfordSnarker in the end. When he first runs down the personnel situation at Fort Spencer to Boyd, (telling him how the drunken Major Knox is the one who plays doctor if they need someone to do so, and Cleaves the stoner is the local chef) he gives us his gem:
-->"My advice to you: don't get sick. I'd say don't eat, but then again most of us have to."
* DirtyCoward: Boyd. Everybody knows it, including him. He let his entire unit get massacred around him while playing dead in an attempt to save himself. He only took the Mexican fort because some of his C.O.'s blood dripped into his mouth and gave a minor version of the Wendigo's CannibalismSuperpower. But in the end, [[spoiler:he finds the moral and physical courage to fight the monstrous Ives to the death, and when Ives is on the edge of victory Boyd willing gives his life to [[TakingYouWithMe take Ives with him]].]]
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler: Hart asks Boyd to kill him because he doesn't want to live as a cannibal anymore, Boyd himself chooses to die instead of eating Ives in the end]].
* DownerEnding: But a ''hilarious'' downer ending, which, in this movie, is somehow possible.
-->'''Ives''': ''That was... '''really'''... sneaky.''
** With a touch of [[spoiler:DiedHappilyEverAfter - Boyd got [[ReassignedToAntarctica Reassigned To The Frontier]] because of his cowardice, becomes a cannibal because he's afraid to die, but in the end he willingly accepts death hoping to stop Ives' cannibal conspiracy. If he had only thrown out the "Stew a la Major Knox" beforehand...]]
* TheEndOrIsIt: At the end of the film, [[spoiler: the newly-arrived General Slauson greedily slurping up the "Stew a la Major Knox", thus becoming a cannibal and setting up the potential to [[HereWeGoAgain start the whole mess up again]]. Of course, the good general wouldn't know where the meat came from, or how to repeat the experience, so that throws some doubt as to whether things will in fact start over]].
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: More like "[[TheDeterminator Determinator]] Cannot Comprehend Coward". Ives is visibly shocked that Boyd would [[spoiler: jump to seemingly certain death]] rather than stay and fight for his only real chance at survival. What he didn't anticipate was that Boyd really ''was'' [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled committing suicide]], and the fact that he lived was pure luck.
* EvilTastesGood: Ives certainly thinks so, especially given his state before he turned to the dark temptations.
* EvilRedhead: [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] [[spoiler: when Hart turns wendigo he becomes younger and his hair goes from grey to red. When he dies it [[DyingAsYourself goes back to grey again]].]]
* FakeUltimateHero: Boyd gets a medal for [[PlayingPossum fainting bravely in the face of danger]].
* FauxAffablyEvil: Again, Ives, who manages to make Boyd look absolutely insane by virtue of being so damn convincingly charismatic to everyone else.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** Colqhoun has a rosary wrapped around his hand when he arrives at the fort. [[spoiler:Although it is possible to miss seeing it, the same rosary can be seen in his flashbacks belonging to Mrs [=MacCready=] that he claims to have left behind with Colonel Ives. This is the first sign that Colqhoun is not at all what he seems.]]
** The flashbacks provide more of this. The scenes describing the journey have plenty of detail, and show the struggle of the pioneers, but certain things are more or less hidden from viewers. Mostly, [[spoiler: the appearance of Ives and how the various pioneers died. This is done to hide the fact that it's Colqhoun who did all the murdering.]]
** While telling the story, [[spoiler:Colqhoun has hard time to recall names and origin of the party members, never addressing them by name and even never revealing his own name. That's because he never really cared about those people and only saw them as a meal]].
** After [[spoiler:wiping out the party from Fort Spencer]], at one point Ives is seen chuckling to himself as he drags [[spoiler: Toffler's body]] into the cave. Considering we later see him eating outside in the stream, why ''was'' Ives dragging it in there? [[spoiler:For Colonel Hart to eat, as we will find out later.]]
** Hart is about the only character shown eating food that ''isn't'' meat when he is munching on walnuts when Boyd first arrives at Fort Spencer. [[spoiler:Hart later proves to be unable and unwilling to live as a cannibal, to the point that he begs Boyd for a MercyKill rather than continue on that path]].
* GenreBusting: Though often compared to {{Exploitation Film}}s like ''Film/CannibalHolocaust'', the film has a lot of subtle navel-gazing amidst the [[HighPressureBlood rivers of blood]] and {{Gorn}}. Specifically, it hybridizes cannibalism with ''[[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampirism]]''; cannibals are not depicted as diseased savages, but as healthy and refined. In turn, their feasts are not [[KissOfTheVampire oddly sensual "necking" sessions]], but [[LetsMeetTheMeat brutally butchered]] human beings who are seen walking and talking when the cannibal decided they were food.
-->'''[[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ravenous-1999 Roger Ebert:]]''' ''"Ravenous" is clever in the way it avoids most of the cliches of the vampire movie by using cannibalism, and most of the cliches of the cannibal movie by using vampirism.''
* GreatOffscreenWar: [[UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar And a one that rarely shows up in fiction]].
* HealingFactor: The effect of the {{Wendigo}}, but with the side effect of HorrorHunger.
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: [[spoiler: Colonel Hart, starts out as a KnightInSourArmor but turns cannibal when Ives brings him back from the dead before having a [[IncrediblyLamePun change of heart]] and asking Boyd to MercyKill him]].
* HemoErotic: Ives has a thing for blood, and doesn't mind it being splashed all over him (including his face) at all.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Referenced in the quote at the beginning of the movie. Relevant to [[spoiler: Boyd, who has to become a monster to have a chance to defeat Ives]].
* HorrorHunger: The desire for more human meat is extremely strong in those who partake in cannibalism, to the point of being TheCorruption and making them willing to viciously murder and abandon morality due to the craving.
-->'''Colqhoun:''' (talking about eating the first person to die from the pioneers) I ate sparingly. Others did not. The meat did not last us a week. We were soon hungry again, only this time our hunger was different. More... severe. Savage.
* IndulgentFantasySegue: This is probably the only movie ever made where the protagonist fantasizes about eating David Arquette.
* ItsAllAboutMe: [[spoiler: A big part of what makes Ives so irredeemably evil. When dying on tuberculosis, he ''killed, cooked and ate'' a person who told him a myth, just to ''try'' prevent his own death, with absolutely zero guaranteed it would work and completely disregarding the side effects. Then he callously wiped out an entire pioneer party that he lured to the middle of nowhere, just to get closer to the place that he wanted to use for his long-term plans. And then killed and ate almost entire crew stationed in Fort Spencer. All just because it was good for his own health]]. Sacrifice and embracing death is in fact one of the main themes of the movie, with Boyd becoming a "hero" by playing dead instead of fighting and then spending rest of the story living under the heavy burden created by this event.
* JekyllAndHyde: [[spoiler: Colqhoun and Ives]] according to Creator/RobertCarlyle. [[spoiler:Apparently his behavior in front of the cave was his transforming from one to the other]].
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: [[spoiler: Ives lays out his larger plot to Boyd in this manner. When the two are alone Ives lays out his plan to create a small but well-connected group of cannibals similar to Ives, who can ambush small groups of pioneers passing through Fort Spencer and cover it up effectively. Ives also picks the time and place of this revelation quite carefully to make sure he isn't overheard by any of the others]].
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Well, not exactly fight, but Ives does give [[spoiler:Toffler]] a sporting chance, telling him to run instead of simply killing him as [[spoiler:Toffler]] stood there whimpering in shock. It's combined with heavy MoodWhiplash due to [[SoundtrackDissonance the fast banjo flick playing in the background]].
* LuredIntoATrap
** [[spoiler:Colqhoun leads the party from Fort Spencer out into the wilderness and away from help, right to ground he knows and where he can get an advantage on them, complete with hidden weapons and traps]].
** Boyd does this to Ives at the end of the movie. [[spoiler:Boyd is weakening from his fight with Ives, so he sets up a bear trap, lures Ives to the location by pretending to be weaker than he is, and when Ives comes to finish him off, Boyd wrestles Ives into the trap and springs it on both of them to make sure Ives will have no chance to escape.]]
* MadEye: Every time Ives is about to do something even more grotesque than normal, one eye half-closes and the other eye gets wider. When he's sane (or [[MaskOfSanity acting sane]]), they're both perfectly normal.
* MagicalNativeAmerican: Mostly averted. George and Martha do tell the cast about the Wendigo Myth, but the rest of the time spend time either caring for the horses and doing other chores (Martha) or getting stoned (George).
* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In-universe, the film takes place right when [[GoldFever Californian Gold Rush]] is about to start. While nobody in Fort Spencer knows about it yet, [[spoiler: including Ives]], this would provide a steady influx of random pioneers going through the fort.
* MeaningfulName: Reich is a blonde muscular fighter who seems the only proper soldier in the fort.
* MedalOfDishonor: Boyd gets one just before he gets ReassignedToAntarctica; ''everyone'' knows that his victory was due him PlayingPossum, and they really don't want him around.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Colonel Hart decides to try a rescue the moment Colqhoun reveals that the last people left from the party are a woman and Colonel Ives, who it seems will inevitably murder her. Nobody voices any objections, and both Reich and Boyd are later more upset about her death than those of all the other pioneers. Their reaction is justified, since the entire trek was to get her rescued. [[spoiler: By the end of the film, the only inhabitant of Fort Spencer left alive is Martha. She wisely packs her things and just walks away]].
* MildlyMilitary: The guys at Fort Spencer spend most of their time just kind of hanging out, eating, or getting stoned. Granted, there's not much better to do in the middle of nowhere while also being a skeleton crew, but still.
* MoodDissonance: Blood, murder, freezing weather, ambiguous moral decisions, character flaws, and... stoners. Comedy, drug humor, everybody here was ReassignedToAntarctica... but the emotional impact is unhindered.
* MoodWhiplash: We have TheReveal, wherein Reich and Boyd find a cave full of bloody skeletons, [[spoiler: "Reverend Colqhoun" turns out to be the BigBad Ives, two guys die brutally (Col. Hart is stabbed and gets tomahawked in the spine, George is shot)]]... and it's immediately followed by Ives chasing Toffler around to silly banjo music.
* MrFanservice: Boyd, played by Guy Pearce. Also, the extremely muscular Reich gets a number of shirtless scenes because... well, just because.
* NeckSnap: Boyd kills a Mexican officer at the beginning this way.
* NewMeat: Boyd starts out like this, but unfortunately doesn't get any better once he goes into battle, resulting in his cowardly acts during battle and his subsequent reassignment.
* NoEscapeButDown: When Boyd is cornered by [[spoiler:Ives/Colqhoun]] at the cliff's top. He jumps, without '''any''' landing spot. [[spoiler:He survives, but his leg is badly broken.]] It's one of the film's more memorable scenes.
* NonActionGuy: Despite being an Army fort, Fort Spencer has far more of these than it does capable soldiers. Reich is a genuine fighter, Martha is tough in her own way, and on the few occasions when Knox and George aren't either drinking or smoking themselves silly they'll at at least ''try'', but everyone else in the fort is a coward, a bumbler, or a misfit.
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: Reich is somehow still alive after taking a knife to the chest and falling off a cliff, and in his dying confusion he makes one last attempt to fight... apparently unaware that he's trying to choke Boyd rather than the guy who actually wounded him]].
* OverDrawnAtTheBloodBank: The final fight was so over-the-top the production ''ran out of fake blood.''
* PeekabooCorpse: Visible to the audience before the characters notice them, which makes the shock feel a bit less cheap. [[spoiler: And there's a whole cave full! Wait a minute... One, two, three, four, five corpses with the meat stripped off... OhCrap! [[EurekaMoment There were six pioneers]]! [[TheReveal Colqhoun is the cannibal]]!]]
* TheQuietOne: Unlike her brother George, Martha can speak some English, but she generally chooses not to. Hart discusses this when he first meets Boyd, and bets that Boyd didn't get a word out of Martha when she escorted him to Fort Spencer. The only time she says more than two or three words at once is when Boyd asks her how to make the Wendigo's HorrorHunger stop.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The occupants of Fort Spencer. Contrary to the trope's general use, they don't really do so well.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: The basis for every lead character except the villain. Possibly related to the nature of Western expansion, which likely attracted those who wished to leave, or was a convenient place to kick out the misfits that you didn't want around.
* ReassignmentBackfire: Subverted. Boyd is sent to Fort Spencer as a punishment for his cowardice, but, despite the fact that he gets better, pretty much [[KillEmAll everyone dies]] anyway.
* ScreamingWarrior: Private Reich, even in the first second you ever see him.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: Martha, at the end of the film. When she comes back and finds Boyd and Ives together in the bear trap, she immediately leaves the fort. Given she's the last survivor of fort's inhabitants and a ''lot'' of weird things happened, she would end up questioned. And telling a story about mythical monster while being native ''and'' a woman is definitely not going to work her any favours]].
* SettlingTheFrontier: A very important element of the background is the influx of pioneers to settle down in lands freshly captured from Mexico. Manifest Destiny is also brought up and discussed.
* ShownTheirWork: The movie is, on occasion, oppressively realistic in its portrayal of its mountainous, unpleasant terrain and the military of its time.
** It's with touch of RealLifeWritesThePlot - there were serious problems with weather during production. The constant dissonance between heavy snow, thaw and relatively high temperatures around Fort Spencer? It's all ThrowItIn.
* SinisterMinister: When Colqhoun introduces himself, he notes that he's "a servant of God." [[spoiler:He's also a murderer and cannibal.]]
* SnowMeansDeath: Sure, the trek into the mountains is dangerous, but it's really the cannibals you need to watch out for.
* SouthernGentleman: Major Knox has a very thick southern accent and is an officer.
* TheStoner: "The over-medicated Private Cleaves".
* SuicidalGotcha: Messy, and without the common convenient landing spot. [[spoiler: Boyd actually jumps off a cliff, falls down through tree limbs and into a PitTrap, breaking the ever-loving crap out of his leg in the process. Also, the end of the movie, where Boyd lures Ives into a bear trap, which kills them both.]]
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:With Ives seemingly getting the better of their fight, Boyd comes to the conclusion that this is the only way to stop him.]]
* TeachHimAnger: [[spoiler: Ives to Boyd, although it's less about anger and more about power and health that come from being a cannibal. Which ends in a very bloody PygmalionSnapback]].
* TookALevelInBadass: Boyd spends the entire film as the designated wimp (he even gets a medal of cowardice), until [[spoiler: the last 3 scenes when he decides to fight Ives, using all of his new cannibal superpowers]].
** In the backstory, Ives, who went from a tubercular, suicidal mess to a DiabolicalMastermind MadeOfIron. And [[spoiler: Col. Hart, who, in his first scene, cracks walnut shells under a giant book, but in a later scene, is able to crush them with his bare hands.]] All through the magic of cannibalism.
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: One of the biggest offenders of '99. Before even the lector starts to comment the film, we already see [[spoiler:Robert Carlyle's character as an inhabitant of Fort Spencer]]. Then half way through we also learn that [[spoiler:Jeffrey Jones' character is a cannibal, Major Knox is killed and turned into a stew ''and'' Guy Pearce will fight to death with Robert Carlyle]]. And just to add insult to the injury, [[spoiler: Robert Carlyle is shown in his Colqhoun persona, pointing a gun at Jeremy Davies]]. The trailer spoiled ''every single twist'' aside from the final scene.
* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: Boyd at the beginning of the movie. He, however, doesn't exactly [[PlayingPossum fight his way out]].
* UnreliableExpositor: [[spoiler:Which part of Colqhoun's story was a fabrication and which was truth? We know that Ives ate some people and that he lived in that cave. But what about all the details? Especially since some of them don't stick together]].
* UnusualEuphemism: Mr Janus from Virginia travelled with his black "servant" Jones. The action takes place in the winter in early 1848, making it more likely for Jones to be simply a slave.
* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: [[spoiler: Reich is the most capable and motivated soldier of the entire garrison. Naturally Ives kills him easily with a thrown dagger and a convenient cliff for him to fall off]].
* WouldHitAGirl: ZigZagged with Ives. [[spoiler: He had nothing against killing and eating Mrs [=MacCready=], but in the end, Martha is the only inhabitant of Fort Spencer left alive and he apparently completely ignored her existence]].

----

Lieutenant Boyd, a soldier in the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar of the 1840s, has a freak-out when his commanding officer dies in front of him during a battle and decides on PlayingPossum. The Mexicans thus load him into a cartful of corpses and (for some reason) take him back near their base with the intent of burying him and the rest of his unit there. Then blood from the other soldiers washes down into Boyd's mouth, giving him an intense adrenaline rush during which he single-handedly captures the enemy command, winning the battle.

Initially the Army promotes Boyd and gives him a MedalOfDishonor while intending to present him as a hero, but Boyd's nerves are clearly shattered and he's unable to present the heroic facade the Army wants. The local general decides that with Boyd being useless in battle and not credible as a PropagandaHero, the best thing he can do is make sure Boyd is far, far away from the front lines and anyplace where he would draw attention. So he gives Boyd a [[ReassignedToAntarctica Reassignment To Fort Spencer]], a rarely-visited and barely manned ramshackle mountain fort in the [[MiddleOfNowhereStreet Middle Of Nowhere]] that serves as a stopping point for pioneers traveling to California. When Boyd arrives the fort proves to be populated mostly by [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits drunks, misfits, layabouts, and crazies.]]

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: The drunken sot Major Knox knocks Boyd out with a single punch at one point. Later [[spoiler:when Colonel Hart is commenting on the stew they made out of Knox, he comments that Knox "was stronger than he looked"]]. It didn't do Knox much good, however. Note the use of past tense.

* DirtyCoward: Boyd. Everybody knows it, including him. He let his entire unit get massacred around him while playing dead in an attempt to save himself. He only took the Mexican fort because [[spoiler: some of his C.O.'s blood dripped into his mouth and gave a minor version of the Wendigo's CannibalismSuperpower]]. But in the end, [[spoiler:he finds the moral and physical courage to fight the monstrous Ives to the death, and when Ives is on the edge of victory Boyd willing gives his life to [[TakingYouWithMe take Ives with him]].]]

** While telling the story, [[spoiler: Colqhoun has hard time to recall names and origin of the party members, never adressing them by name and even never revealing his own name. That's because he never really cared about those people and only saw them as a meal]].

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Referenced in the quote at the beginning of the movie. Relevant to [[spoiler: Boyd, who has to become a monster to defeat Ives]].

* ItsAllAboutMe: [[spoiler: A big part of what makes Ives so irredeemably evil. When dying on tuberculosis, he ''killed, cooked and ate'' a person who told him a myth, just to ''try'' prevent own death, with absolutely zero guaranteed it's going to work and completely disregarding the side effects. Then he callously wiped out entire pioneer party he lured in the middle of nowhere, just to get closer to his planned area of operation. And then killed and ate almost entire crew stationed in Fort Spencer. All just because it was good for his own health]]. Sacrifice and embracing death is in fact one of the main themes of the movie, with Boyd becoming a "hero" by playing dead instead of fighting and then spending rest of the story living under the heavy burden created by this event.

* JustBetweenYouAndMe: [[spoiler: Ives lays out his larger plot to Boyd in this manner. When the two are alone Ives lays out his plan to create a small but well-connected group of cannibals similar to Ives, who can ambush small groups of pioneers passing through Fort Spencer and cover it up effectively. Ives also picks the time and place of this revealation quite carefully to make sure he isn't overheard by any of the others]].
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Well, not exactly fight, but [[spoiler: Ives does give Toffler a sporting chance, telling him to run instead of simply killing him as Toffler stood there whimpering in shock]].
** It's combined with heavy MoodWhiplash due to [[SoundtrackDissonance the fast banjo flick playing in the background]].

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In-universe, the film takes place right when [[GoldFever Californian Gold Rush]] is about to start. While nobody in Fort Spencer knows about it yet, [[spoiler: including Ives, this would provide a steady influx of random pioneers going through the fort]].

* MoodWhiplash: We have TheReveal, wherein Reich and Boyd find a cave full of bloody skeletons, [[spoiler: "reverend Colqhoun" turns out to be the BigBad Ives, two guys die brutally (Col. Hart is stabbed and gets tomahawked in the spine, George is shot)]]... and it's immediately followed by Ives chasing Toffler around to silly banjo music.
* MrFanservice: Boyd, played by Guy Pearce. Also, the extremely muscular Reich gets a number of shirtless scenes... well, just because.

* NewMeat: Boyd starts out like this, but unfortunately doesn't get any better once he goes into battle, resulting in his reassignment.

* NonActionGuy: Despite being an Army fort, Fort Spencer has far more of these than it does capable soldiers. Reich is a fighter, Martha is tough in her own way, and Knox and George at least try on the few occasions when they're not either drinking or smoking themselves silly, but everyone else in the fort is a coward, a bumbler, or a misfit.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: Martha, at the end of the film. When she comes back and finds Boyd and Ives together in the bear trap, she immediately leaves the fort. Given she's the last survivor of fort's inhabitants and a ''lot'' of weird things happend, she would end up questioned. And telling a story about mythical monster while being native ''and'' a woman is definitely not going to work her any favours]].

* TheStoner: "The over-medicated Private Cleaves".
* TeachHimAnger: [[spoiler: Ives to Boyd, although it's less about anger and more about power and health. Which ends in a very bloody PygmalionSnapback]].

Colqhoun tells them that when he left the remnant of the group, there was at least two others still alive, the wife of one of the pioneers and their treacherous guide, Ives, who had seemed to truly embrace cannibalism. The Colonel of the fort sets out with his ragtag soldiers to attempt a rescue...

* DyingAsYourself: Hart asks Boyd to kill him because he doesn't want to live as a cannibal anymore, Boyd himself chooses to die instead of eating Ives in the end.

A drama/horror/black comedy released in 1999, written by Ted Griffin and directed by Antonia Bird. Starred Creator/GuyPearce, Creator/RobertCarlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, David Arquette, Creator/NealMcDonough.

* NeckSnap: Boyd kills a Spanish officer at the beginning this way.