The Upside Of Cannibalism

Are you tired of all that anti-cannibal propoganda? Well, here comes Ravenous to show you the BENEFITS of consuming the flesh of humans.

The movie's setting is creative for a cannibal movie. It's the mexican-american war and takes place at an isolated army fort. The newly promoted coward Boyd is stationed tere and soon a crazy man is discovered who is the last surviving member of a party that got lost and started eating each other. Now we're back in the realm of convention. It is then discovered that he did not flee for his life as he claimed, but ate the whole party. He then goes nuts and kills most of the army dudes. Boyd escapes and survives by eating one of his fellow soldiers. We then get back to the same army base some time later and Boyd is suspected of killing the other soldiers and some new ones who are killed during his trial. It turns out it's just the crazy guy and one of the other soldiers who it turns out isn't dead but became a cannibal. Here is where it gets strange.

The movie asserts that eating human flesh makes you stronger, healthier, and can help you to survive mortal wounds. There's also the small matter of being possesed by a spirit who is always hungry for human flesh, but that's a small thing. There's a big end battle and everyone dies and that's the end.

It's a badly paced movie, as most of the action is over before the halfway mark and the rest is slower than a dead snail. The acting is actually decent due to the prescence of several respectable b-list celebs. The story is more creative than the average cannibal movie despite falling to convention a bit in the first half and the characters that get developed do have some amount of depth. This makes it easier to cheer for the hero, flaws and all.

C-

Oh, I should also note that there are a few places that the soundtrack makes no sense. Like the upbeat music while the crazy guy goes on a killing spree. It's hoe-down time with the cannibals!