"Ravenous": Has anyone seen this movie?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE RAVENOUS! If you have any intention of renting this movie, DO NOT GO FURTHER!

Just got done watching the movie “Ravenous” starring Guy Pearce and Donnie Carlisle . . and all I have to say is . . .HUH?

I can’t decide whether this movie was brilliant or sick. It also seems chock full of metaphors that I cant seem to get my finger on. Here’s what I have come up with so far, and Dopers, if you have ideas, PLEASE share them with me.

  1. The Guy Pearce character (the Captain) is Jesus and the Carlisle character (Colonel Ives) is Satan.

Except that early in the movie, they make an analogy between cannibalism and Christian communion- in other words, eating the blood and body of Christ.

The reason I bring this up is because later in the movie the Colonel tries to get the Captain to eat the human flesh, but the Captain resists the temptation.

Is this movie a metaphor for Jesus going into the wilderness for 40 days, in the mountians, to be tempted by the Devil?

  1. It is a metaphor for AIDS. The movie ends with the Captain and the Colonel in a death embrace, after doing a strange dance/struggle, which seemed to have some VERY strong homoerotic overtones.

Once each character eats human flesh (ie engages in homosexual activity), they get this “sickness” (AIDS)where they cant stop eating other people, sort of like vampirism, and every character who engages in this dies. It seems to be the price the Captain ultimately pays for not resisting the Colonels “temptations”.

Is the Colonel the “dominant” member of this relationship, while the the Captain is the “subbmissive” one?

Anyway, I know this all sounds whacked, but hey, its a whacked out film.

I feel hungry for some prime rib for some strange reason . . . .

2

Well.
I guess not.

3

Wait…theuglytruth! I saw this piece of claptrap…I rented the damn thing on PPV for 2.99. It was absolutely the dumbest, idiototic piece of shit movie that I have ever seen. Everybody in it looked like they could have used a bottle of vitamin C and a few days in the sun. Very depressing…there was not one sunny day in the film that I remember…were the hell did they shoot this thing on the moon? No wait there is actually sunshine on the moon.
Anyway you are giving the writers way too much credit for the metaphors…I think they all sat around getting high and just came up with this monstrosity!

“Ward, You’re upsetting the beaver.”
Barbara Billingsley

4

loved it – do all vegetarians have a thing for cannibal movies, or is it just me?
read into it whatever you want, i’m just grateful it didn’t fall into a completely predictable vampire story plotline; whatever baffling bullshit it had made it stand out like another similar-veined black comedy, “Near Dark.”
maybe you’re right about the boy-on-boy action: my favorite line (and that which caught me in the ad)was “He was LICKING ME!”

5

See, ALive, the story of the Andes survivors on video. It’s clear that the butt is the best tasting. Since Ravenous did NOT follow the procedure to eat the butt first, I lost interest.

6

I was pleasantly suprised by the film. I liked it way more than I thought I was going to. I think there might be another way to look at it.

Think of the people as cultures. When the stronger culture consumes the weaker, it gets stronger, but eventually, there is nothing left to consume. When the Captain falls in the pit, he has to eat to survive, even though he is loathe to do so. It is a little like the first Thanksgiving. The Europeans needed help from the natives, the Europeans eventually all but consume the natives. Maybe this is stretching it.

I heard a story about Victoria Falls. For years there has been a diorama in SA of either Stanley or Livingstone “discovering” Victoria Falls. Recently, the sign describing the diorama was changed to so-and-so “visits” Victoria Falls. How delightfully accurate. It insn’t as though the natives didn’t know it was there.

The homoerotic ending tableau could be explained in similar terms. Two strong cultures do a destrutive dance for domination, neither willng to give up, thereby destroying both cultures.

I think there is plenty of Christ imagery at work here too. And it’s sort of an action film, so some of it is just for entertainment.

7

When I first saw the previews, I thought it was a joke. I’ll have to check it out sometime now. I love Biblical analogies.

“That was a hell of a thing.”

8

Man, all of you are reading way too much into this flick. Damn, it’s flippin’ movie for cryin out loud, not a manuscript from a Freudian dream. It has the 1800callatt guy in it for chrissake! What a joke, it’s just a movie. I think it was pretty straightforward. But then again, maybe there IS more to it…
Nee-noo-nee-noo-nee-noo-nee-noo <~~theme from twilight zone…

“I was being honest, @$$hole, I would expect YOU to know the difference.”
~~John Bender in The Breakfast Club.
Talk to me, baby! mcdsanti@hotmail.com

9

Uh- dude . . watch the movie again. If you cant pick up that it is full of metaphors, you just dont get it.

What those metaphors are . . .well I havent an FN clue! LOL!!!