Okay Hollywood, enough already! Death, is not funny, and gruesome death is REALLY not funny. I don't know who gave filmmakers and screenwriters the idea that the more graphic, outlandish or gory, a death on screen is, that the filmgoers would be rolling in the aisles, or even flocking to the theaters to see it. True, Heathers made light of a painful subject by dealing with suicide, but by doing that, that movie also drew the line in the sand, saying, this is the limit. Do not go farther, do not pass go, and do not collect ANY money. Now, director Antonia Bird and writer Ted Griffin have not only stepped over it, they have gone flying at supersonic speed past it with Ravenous, a pointless exercise in excess. They obviously learned nothing from the failure of Peter Berg and Very Bad Things. The one thing I will give this movie over that one, though, is that at least Ravenous isn't played as much for laughs, attempting more to make a social message but, unfortunately, I don’t know what that message is. They must've somehow felt that if you take a serious of disturbing images and situations, tie them together with a thinly veiled masquerade of a plot, and add in some good actors, that the bucks, and fans, would come a-rolling in. They were sadly mistaken.

I've stated before that movies don't necessarily have to have a definitive plot, i.e. if entertaining scenes are tied together with a sensible thread, then I can live with it. But they don't even get that right here. I was just plain bored, and to have a modern day vampire-like tale such as this, full of plenty of blood and gore, you almost have to put forward a concerted effort in order to bore. They did! Here is what I could decipher of the plot; maybe you can pick up something I missed.

Pearce plays an Army major who receives a commendation for "cowardice" as he calls it, and is then shipped to remote outpost in the Sierra Nevada’s staffed by a skeleton crew (pun not intended), of curious characters. A timid priest (Davies), an Indian brother and sister, a lush Dr. a gung-ho military man and a chemically induced cook (Arquette), all led by Colonel Hart (Jones). It seems like a harmless, simple, and a nice place for Pearce to recover. But into their midst comes a stranger (Carlyle), who weaves a tale of travelers, trapped and who may have resorted to other means of sustenance ("I said we didn't have food, I didn't say we didn't eat"). The stranger fled, fearing his life, and now the men feel it is their duty to investigate. Upon arrival, all may not have been as the stranger told, and the fun begins. NOT! There is also an interwoven storyline of an old Indian legend, about men gaining strength from eating other men. It sounded interesting but is too convoluted in the confusion.

There are shining moments in this movie, though. The performance of Robert Carlyle is deliciously wicked, frightening, yet maniacally calm. He is more like his edgy Begbie from Trainspotting, than his likeable chap from The Full Monty. Also, Jeffrey Jones shows. with twisted glee, where Ferris's principal may have ended up after being driven mad by the teenage truant. Unfortunately, on the flip side, there are wasted performances from Jeremy Davies (whining, sniveling and inexplicably demented without any sense of why, as he gave in Saving Private Ryan), and David Arquette, who just played the love child of Cheech and Forrest Gump goes west basically.

This was a nice looking movie from a cinematography standpoint. Bird substitutes Czechoslovakia for the California mountains (suitably it looks like, but I'm not sure why the filming couldn’t be done here) The music by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman also stands out, it is haunting and foreboding, yet playful in a dark sort of way. Overall, it appears this is the case of a good director trying to make the best of a bad script and not succeeding very well.

It also appears that this movie attempts to make some sort of social commentary on the evils of war, and the lengths that man will go to for survival. But unfortunately, I didn't get the message. Maybe I'm slow, or shallow, but I didn't.