Where to find it: I first used a free trial of the Criterion Channel to stream it on there, you can also buy or rent it on youtube or amazon, possibly elsewhere.
Brief description: A cult film that bombed when it was released but is now beloved, a dark comedy, a campy horror, a genre-defying not-NOT-a-western. It's got lovable characters who get viscerally murdered, it's got critique of American imperialism and the insatiable western expansion, it's got a dramatic intentionally gay-coded villain trying to seduce the main character into joining him in his Evil Ways (cannibalism for fun and profit.) It's set at and around a remote American military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas during the 1840s and features a beautiful war-traumatized captain being subjected to constant inescapable horrors.
What you love about canon: God, it's indescribable. I vibe with this movie so hard. The comedy is exactly my type of thing, the horror is so good, I love when the two are combined the way they are here and I feel like they add to one another's impact. The delightful band of misfits that is the cast of characters sent to this remote outpost for military failures disliked by their commanders. The intertwined themes of religion/imperialism as systems of violent power. The music! The general impossible to describe vibe of it all! The THEMES! The way it felt so realistic with how the characters behaved, not like heroes just like some tired guys trying to do the bare minimum at their jobs. All the small moments of friendship between characters. There's one kind of butch female character who's really cool.
What I love about my ships: Boyd/Ives, the hero and villain, have an incredibly homoerotic relationship that just about everyone who's watched the movie has already commented on, so I'll stay my hand here and just say that I've nominated their tag should anyone else decide to request them and that I will happily write about them. That said, I'm a rarepair maniac for this one and am myself only (ha) requesting the nine other relationship tags! Here are a few:
Ives/Toffler: The cannibalistic maniac villain slash an adorably weird guy he's friendly with at first and later kills and eats. Incredible dark ship potential. Also both characters are deeply religious (yes, also the guy who eats people) and that's... interesting! Huh!?? (pointing at him) Explain!! Anyways we don't see the death on screen so it could have been anything. Cannibal guy has repeatedly implied that cannibalism makes him horny. How uh... how homoerotic WAS the homoerotic cannibalism?
Boyd/Hart: Boyd, the deeply traumatized main character who's sent to rot at Fort Spencer because the General hates him, and Colonel Hart, who meets him at the Fort, shows him the ropes and tries to help him settle into the place. Hart clearly likes Boyd (he says it out loud at one point!) and repeatedly tries and fails to get him chatting about his past, his hobbies etc., but despite Boyd's unwillingness/inability to chitchat about feelings they clearly enjoy hanging out together. They steal the major's alcohol while he's passed out and have a drink together, they share a pipe at one point, Boyd generally follows him around like a lost duckling. (There's also a lot going on with them later that would be bigger spoilers than I want to share here) I just love their relationship so much.
Kinds of things I'm asking for: Depends ENTIRELY on the ship! Ives/Toffler: noncon/dubcon, violent cannibalism, nasty gore sex, undeath, nonconsensual cannibalistic resurrection as an undead cannibal AU, but also how they interacted before the cannibalism when Ives was friendly to him (or, were there dark undertones even then? Hmmmm!)
Hart/Boyd or Hart & Boyd: They're still in a horror setting but I see their relationship as very sweet. I want Boyd to be able to forget the PTSD nightmares for an evening and have a good time.
Boyd & Any: Friends with benefits? Just hanging out with the Fort Spencer crew? Various characters getting to know each other? Petting the fort dog and having snowball fights like they do in one of the deleted scenes maybe?
And multiple other ships! I think Ives/Toffler is the darkest, most of the others I see as... well, they don't eat each other, so there's that! But generally fluffier yeah!
Content Notes: A horror movie. Blood, death, gore, cannibalism, war. The horror of Manifest Destiny. Also, another instance of badly appropriated wendigo myth.
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Ravenous (1999)
Date: 2024-01-05 02:04 am (UTC)Medium:Movie, 1999, dir. Antonia Bird
Approximate Length:1hr 41m
Where to find it: I first used a free trial of the Criterion Channel to stream it on there, you can also buy or rent it on youtube or amazon, possibly elsewhere.
Brief description: A cult film that bombed when it was released but is now beloved, a dark comedy, a campy horror, a genre-defying not-NOT-a-western. It's got lovable characters who get viscerally murdered, it's got critique of American imperialism and the insatiable western expansion, it's got a dramatic intentionally gay-coded villain trying to seduce the main character into joining him in his Evil Ways (cannibalism for fun and profit.) It's set at and around a remote American military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas during the 1840s and features a beautiful war-traumatized captain being subjected to constant inescapable horrors.
What you love about canon: God, it's indescribable. I vibe with this movie so hard. The comedy is exactly my type of thing, the horror is so good, I love when the two are combined the way they are here and I feel like they add to one another's impact. The delightful band of misfits that is the cast of characters sent to this remote outpost for military failures disliked by their commanders. The intertwined themes of religion/imperialism as systems of violent power. The music! The general impossible to describe vibe of it all! The THEMES! The way it felt so realistic with how the characters behaved, not like heroes just like some tired guys trying to do the bare minimum at their jobs. All the small moments of friendship between characters. There's one kind of butch female character who's really cool.
What I love about my ships:
Boyd/Ives, the hero and villain, have an incredibly homoerotic relationship that just about everyone who's watched the movie has already commented on, so I'll stay my hand here and just say that I've nominated their tag should anyone else decide to request them and that I will happily write about them. That said, I'm a rarepair maniac for this one and am myself only (ha) requesting the nine other relationship tags! Here are a few:
Ives/Toffler: The cannibalistic maniac villain slash an adorably weird guy he's friendly with at first and later kills and eats. Incredible dark ship potential. Also both characters are deeply religious (yes, also the guy who eats people) and that's... interesting! Huh!?? (pointing at him) Explain!! Anyways we don't see the death on screen so it could have been anything. Cannibal guy has repeatedly implied that cannibalism makes him horny. How uh... how homoerotic WAS the homoerotic cannibalism?
Boyd/Hart: Boyd, the deeply traumatized main character who's sent to rot at Fort Spencer because the General hates him, and Colonel Hart, who meets him at the Fort, shows him the ropes and tries to help him settle into the place. Hart clearly likes Boyd (he says it out loud at one point!) and repeatedly tries and fails to get him chatting about his past, his hobbies etc., but despite Boyd's unwillingness/inability to chitchat about feelings they clearly enjoy hanging out together. They steal the major's alcohol while he's passed out and have a drink together, they share a pipe at one point, Boyd generally follows him around like a lost duckling. (There's also a lot going on with them later that would be bigger spoilers than I want to share here) I just love their relationship so much.
Kinds of things I'm asking for:
Depends ENTIRELY on the ship! Ives/Toffler: noncon/dubcon, violent cannibalism, nasty gore sex, undeath, nonconsensual cannibalistic resurrection as an undead cannibal AU, but also how they interacted before the cannibalism when Ives was friendly to him (or, were there dark undertones even then? Hmmmm!)
Hart/Boyd or Hart & Boyd: They're still in a horror setting but I see their relationship as very sweet. I want Boyd to be able to forget the PTSD nightmares for an evening and have a good time.
Boyd & Any: Friends with benefits? Just hanging out with the Fort Spencer crew? Various characters getting to know each other? Petting the fort dog and having snowball fights like they do in one of the deleted scenes maybe?
And multiple other ships! I think Ives/Toffler is the darkest, most of the others I see as... well, they don't eat each other, so there's that! But generally fluffier yeah!
Content Notes: A horror movie. Blood, death, gore, cannibalism, war. The horror of Manifest Destiny. Also, another instance of badly appropriated wendigo myth.