History Film / Ravenous

* BuriedInAPileOfCorpses: Boyd plays dead in one for a time, resulting in him ending up in the enemy base and wiping them out.

** After [[spoiler:wiping out the party from Fort Spencer]], at one point Ives is seen chuckling to himself as he drags Toffler's body into the cave. Considering we later see him eating outside in the stream, why ''was'' Ives dragging Toffler in there? [[spoiler:For Colonel Hart to eat, as we will find out later.]]

** 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.]]

* 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]].

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, but when one of them is hurt during the journey, he wakes up to find Colqhoun licking the wound... and then there's the horrifying scene they find when they reach the cave where the pioneers had taken shelter.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Private Toffler has some very odd behaviors, including sometimes going mute.

* AntiVillain: [[spoiler: Col. Hart at the end.]]
* ArsonMurderAndLifeSaving: This is how Boyd earned the backhanded promotion that landed him at Fort Spencer.

* BeingEvilSucks: Boyd definitely thinks so [[spoiler: as does Hart in the end]]
* BigBad: Colonel Ives kills his way through the cast of the film.

** The first member of Colqhoun's party to bite it in the flashback is the token black servant.
** Also George, a resident native, dies before any of the other (white) main characters. [[spoiler: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...]]

** Colqhoun 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 never saw Ives [[spoiler: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.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The series of circumstances that allow Boyd to survive his first clash with [[spoiler:Ives/Calqhoun]] is astronomically unlikely. [[spoiler:He jumps off a cliff into the forest below without dying, happens to roll across the body of Reich, (who had been mortally wounded and knocked off the cliff earlier by Colqhoun) then they both roll into a pit trap that gives Boyd cover and allows him to escape Colqhoun's notice when the cannibal comes looking for him to finish him off. On top of all that, Reich's body gives Boyd a food source and also gives him the Wendigo powers to heal and recover from his wounds quickly so he can limp back to Fort Spencer.]]
* 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 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]].]]

* 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 jump to seemingly certain death rather than stay and fight for his only real chance at survival. (Bear in mind that Boyd really ''was'' [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled committing suicide]] with that jump, and the fact that he lived was pure luck.)
* EvilTastesGood: Ives certainly thinks so.

** 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 the woman 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, the appearance of Ives and how the various pioneers died. [[spoiler:This is done to hide the fact that it's Colqhoun who did all the murdering.]]

** 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 Specner. [[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.]]

* 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]]

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

-->'''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.

* 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: 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 Ives does give Toffler a sporting chance, telling him to run instead of simply killing him as Toffler stood there whimpering in shock.

** [[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.]]

* 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.
* 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, but still.

* 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.

* NotQuiteDead: Reich is somehow still alive after taking a dagger 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.

* 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.]]

* SouthernGentleman: Major Knox.
* SuicidalGotcha: Messy, and without the common convenient landing spot. 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, [[spoiler: the end of the movie, where Boyd lures Ives into a bear trap, which kills them both.]]

* TeachHimAnger: Ives to Boyd, although it's less about anger and more about power and health. Which ends in [[spoiler: a very bloody PygmalionSnapback]].
* TookALevelInBadass: Boyd spends the entire film as the designated wimp (he even gets a medal of cowardice), until the last 3 scenes [[spoiler:when he decides to fight Ives, using all of his new cannibal superpowers]].

* 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?]]
* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: Reich is the most capable and motivated soldier of the entire garrison. [[spoiler: Naturally Ives kills him easily with a thrown dagger and a convenient cliff for him to fall off.]]

* 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]]. Normally, a single 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.

** 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, lets Ives come with the intent of killing him, and then Boyd wrestles Ives into the trap and springs it on both of them to make sure Ives will have no chance to escape.]]

* MrFanservice: Boyd, played by Guy Pearce. Also, the extremely-muscular Reich seems to have his shirt off ''a lot''.

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

* 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.

* SouthernGentleman: Major Knox

* UnreliableNarrator: [[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?]]

* CaliforniaDoubling: Inverted. The Slovakian Tatra Mountains double ''for'' the Californian Sierra Nevadas.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The series of circumstances that allow Boyd to survive his first clash with [[spoiler:Ives/Calqhoun]] is astronomically unlikely. [[spoiler:He jumps off a cliff into the forest below without dying, happens to roll across the body of Reich, (who had been mortally wounded and knocked off the cliff earlier by Colqhoun) then they both roll into a pit trap that gives Boyd cover and allows him to escape Colqhoun's notice when the cannibal comes looking for him to finish him off, ''and'' coming across Reich's body gives Boyd a food source to use to survive but also gives him the Wendigo powers to heal and recover from his wounds quickly so he can limp back to Fort Spencer.]]
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: [[spoiler:Major Knox]] is said to be "stronger than he looked" but it doesn't do him much good. Note the use of past tense.

-->"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 only took the Mexican fort after PlayingPossum because some of his C.O.'s blood dripped into his mouth. But in the end, [[spoiler:he finds the moral and physical courage to fight the monstrous Ives to the death, and Ives is on the edge of victory Boyd willing gives his life to [[TakingYouWithMe take Ives with him]].]]

* FauxSymbolism: There's a tenuous connection made between cannibalism and communion which signifies nothing and never comes up again. Ives spends the climax with the sign of the cross made in blood on his forehead for no reason and with no explanation. If anything, it symbolises exactly the opposite of what Ives would like to say about himself (a visible cross on the forehead evokes Ash Wednesday, when the sign reminds the bearer that they are made from dust and will die).

** After [[wiping out the party from Fort Spencer]], at one point Ives is seen chuckling to himself as he drags Toffler's body into the cave. Considering we later see him eating outside in the stream, why ''was'' Ives dragging Toffler in there? [[spoiler:For Colonel Hart to eat, as we will find out later.]]

Lieutenant Boyd, a soldier in the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar of the 1840s, has a freak-out when his commanding officer dies in front of him and decides on PlayingPossum. The Mexicans thus load him into a cartful of corpses and (for some reason) taken back to their base. Then some blood drips into Boyd's mouth, giving him an intense adrenaline rush during which he single-handedly captures the enemy command, winning the battle. But everyone realizes (most of) what happened when he throws up at the victory barbecue. He thus gets a MedalOfDishonor and a [[ReassignedToAntarctica Reassignment To Fort Spencer]], a rarely-visited ramshackle mountain pioneer stop in the [[MiddleOfNowhereStreet Middle Of Nowhere]] populated solely by [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits drunks, layabouts and crazies.]]

Boyd's just settled into his life of 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 ate the next one who died of starvation... and found themselves looking at each other oddly...

Colqhoun tells them that when he left the remnant of the group, there was at least one of the other pioneers was still alive, along with their treacherous guide, Ives, who seemed to embrace cannibalism. The Colonel of the fort sets out with his soldiers to attempt a rescue, out of boredom as much as anything else. But when one of them is hurt during the journey, he wakes up to find Colqhoun licking the wound... and then there's the horrifying scene they find when they reach the cave where the pioneers had taken shelter.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Private Toffler

* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: Averted. ''Private'' Reich has to remind ''Captain'' Boyd not to point a loaded rifle at him. A nicely subtle way of reinforcing how useless Boyd is as a soldier.

* BlackComedy: The film is ambiguous in this regard.
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: The first member of Colqhoun's party to bite it in the flashback is the token black servant.
** Also George, a resident native, dies before any of the other (white) main characters.
*** Though it's worth pointing out that while George ''dies'' first, he's shot after another character has been stabbed in the gut. While the knife is still inside him. And another knife is in his back. [[spoiler: Almost an inversion, anyway, since Hart doesn't die.]]

* 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.]]
** 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.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: [[spoiler: Knox]] is said to be "stronger than he looked" but it doesn't do him much good. Note the use of past tense.
* DeadpanSnarker: Hart most of the time, though he's revealed to be more StepfordSnarker in the end
--> "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 only took the Mexican fort after PlayingPossum because some of his C.O.'s blood dripped into his mouth. But in the end, [[spoiler:he willingly dies, [[TakingYouWithMe taking Ives with him]].]]

* 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 [[HereWeGoAgain starting the whole mess up again]].]]

* 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]]]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Colqhoun has a rosary wrapped around his hand when he arrives at the fort. [[spoiler: The same rosary can be seen in his flashbacks belonging to the woman that he claims to have left behind with Colonel Ives. This is the first sign that Colqhoun is not what he seems at all.]]

* HemoErotic: Ives has a thing for blood

* 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]]
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Well, not exactly fight, but Ives does give Toffler a sporting chance, telling him to run instead of simply killing him as he stood there whimpering in shock.

* 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 acting sane), they're both perfectly normal.

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

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: Martha]]

%%* SinisterMinister: [[spoiler: Colqhoun.]]

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: Boyd comes to this conclusion]]

Boyd's just settled into his life of 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]]. A few weeks later, they ate the next one who died of starvation... and found themselves looking at each other oddly...

Colqhoun tells them that when he left when of the other pioneers was still alive and the Colonel of the fort sets out with his soldiers to attempt a rescue, out of boredom as much as anything else. But when one of them is hurt, he wakes up to find Colqhoun licking the wound...

* MoodWhiplash: We have TheReveal, wherein the party finds a cave full of bloody skeletons, [[spoiler: "reverend Colqhoun" turns out to be the BigBad,]] 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.

* MoodWhiplash: We have TheReveal, wherein the party finds a cave full of bloody skeletons, [[spoiler: "reverend Colqhoun" turns out to be the BigBad,]] two guys die brutally; and it's immediately followed by Ives chasing Toffler around to silly banjo music.

* JekyllAndHyde: [[spoiler: Colqhoun and Ives]] according to RobertCarlyle. [[spoiler: Apparently his behavior in front of the cave was his transforming from one to the other]]

* 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 [[IDoNotDrinkWine strangely alluring red drinks]], but [[LetsMeetTheMeat brutally butchered]] human beings who are seen walking and talking when the cannibal decided they were food.

-->'''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.''

-->'''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.''

* 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 [[IDoNotDrinkWine strangely alluring red drinks]], but brutally butchered human beings who are seen walking and talking when the cannibal decided they were food.

* CannibalismSuperpower: In the film, the {{Wendigo}} myth is true; eating human flesh grants SuperStrength, a HealingFactor, and cures all diseases. It also [[HorrorHunger acts as a drug that makes heroin seem about as addictive as artificial sweetener.]]

* BlondGuysAreEvil: Reich isn't evil, but he is... unpleasant.

** 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.

Essentially, it's a ''{{Wendigo}}'' story filmed with a morbid sense of humor about 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.