 Welcome to today's edition of Frightfully Forgotten, but before we get started, what are we drinking today, Justin? We're drinking Colonel Ives Wendigo weed. Today, we are talking about a movie that we've been pressured to cover by one of our dearest friends. So this one is for you, Chad. Here's to ya. Today, we're finally gonna do 1999's Ravness. Directed by Antonia Bird and she's a director who's done mostly a lot of British TV. It has quite the cast in it. It's very heavy in 90s stars. Yeah. It has Robert Carlyle in it. Guy Pierce is in this. Jeffrey Jones is in this and David Arquette. So the movie starts off, we get introduced to the main character Boyd. It's during the Spanish-American war. During an attack, Boyd kind of lays down and plays dead. And he gets stacked onto this cart with a bunch of dead bodies on top of him and like all the blood from the corpses are running down and sort of jibbling down into his mouth and he's like tasting the blood basically, right? Gets out from underneath all those bodies and he captures the high command of the of the Mexicans. The commanding officer promotes him for capturing the high command but punishes him as well by sending him to a remote fort in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Boyd meets Jeffrey Jones's character, Colonel Hart. And he likes his walnuts too. Breaks him with that giant book. Tideas, I know. Colonel Hart proceeds to tell him about the colorful cast of characters that are in Fort Spencer. We have Private Toffler, our personal emissary from the Lord. Major Knox. Never met a bodily he didn't like. Private Reich, our soldier. Martha and George, locals. This sort of came with the place. Private Cleaves, the overmedicated Private Cleaves. Knox plays Doctor. My advice to you, don't get sick. Colonel Hart, he goes up to Boyd and he's like, uh, Major Knox just passed out. Oh, about a minute ago. He's got some fine bourbon. I mean, it's really excellent stuff. So while they're sipping on their bourbon kind of talking, they see a shadow figure in the window. They go out and they kind of get this guy inside, get him by a fire, get him in a hot bath and warm him up. And he has one hell of a story to tell. I suppose I owe you a story. Him and a group of people guided by this Colonel Ives, they have to go through the Sierra Nevada mountains. It starts snowing, so they need to find shelter. They find a cave. They ate all the oxen, they ate even his little dog, you know, they eat roots and stuff, but you know, there's no real nourishment in those. People start to die. So they start eating. Colonel Ives starts actually killing the people to eat them. Calhoun takes off out of the cave and he leaves one of the women behind. Right after hearing the tale, the local native George pulls out this old parchment and shows a picture and he starts telling heart about the story of the Windigo, which eats a person and kind of consumes their essence in their soul and becomes stronger. Heart puts together a little party to go save the woman that Calhoun left behind. During the expedition, Toffler takes a pretty nasty tumble and gashes his side all up. That night when they're camped out and sleeping, he starts screaming in the middle of the night and he was licking me. What? He was licking me! Calhoun was licking the wound. So now they restrain him. They finally make it to the cave. Private Reich and Boyd go in, find all the dead bodies. They discover that Calhoun was actually lying because they find the body of Colonel Ives. In the meantime, outside, Calhoun starts freaking out. He saw a spook. And he starts killing off all the people who were outside the cave. Calhoun ends up killing Reich and then he corners Boyd on this kind of cliff and Boyd's got nothing else to do. So he just takes a leap of faith and just jumps. Jumps. He falls into this kind of like pit. The body of Reich follows him in and it's hung there upside down just staring at him. In the tumble, Boyd has broken his leg. He resets the bone himself and lays there for days starving, staring at the body of Reich and eventually decides to start eating the body. After he gets his energy back, he's got a full belly. He climbs out of the hole. He gets back to Fort Spencer and they have sent a temporary commanding officer to fill in the shoes for heart. Who shows up as the temporary commanding officer? It is Calhoun disguised and posing as Colonel Ives. That's where we're going to leave the story off. Keep watching if you want to see what happens with Boyd and Colonel Ives slash Calhoun, whoever he really is. Yeah, it had 12 million dollars as the budget and sadly, though, it only made 2 million back at the box office. It fucking bombed. Yeah, and maybe that's why it's a very forgotten movie. I remember renting it as soon as it came out, because I remember wanting to see it. I remember the trailers. I remember the, he's looking. Being in the trailer and thinking, this movie looks cool. I really want to see it. And as soon as it came out, I rented it. Remember we watched it together. Yeah. And movie that kind of no one really talks about as being just a good all around movie that contains horror, comedy, action. It has it all. It has it all. Yeah. It almost didn't even get made. Milchow Manchevsky was the one who started the movie and he got fired what two weeks or something into production. Robert Carlisle himself almost quit the movie. Jeffrey Jones kind of talked him back into, you know, finishing the movie. Problematic part of the shooting was, of course, the movie's supposed to take place during winter. And they did shoot it in the winter in the Slovakian mountains, but it was the warmest winter ever. And there was no snow. So they actually had to during winter bring fake snow and fluff and make it look like winter. Yeah. During the winter, which is kind of neat. And you actually can't really tell the difference. They did a good job. One of the best hallmarks of this movie is the music. It's haunting, but it's catchy. Yeah. I love how they use the instruments of the period. Right. And they kind of sound like they would. They're probably not in tune. Like it's kind of like everything's kind of a little out of tune. It underlines every scene perfectly. The music starts off fun and happy as the journey is fun and happy. And as it starts to take a nosedive, so does the music. Yeah. And it starts to get creepy and fucking weird and unsettling. The music is by Damon Albarn and Michael Nimmin. And Damon Albarn is actually a rock star. He's in blur. I'm sure you all have heard that song. Not just the music, but the sound design. All the other sounds that happen through the movie, like the ambient sounds are very unsettling and really help you get into it. Like, yeah, there's scenes where the people are just talking, but he can hear like flies buzzing around because it's dirty. It's, you know, there's rotting things around. And the wind is always blowing gives you that sense of the cold and claustrophobia when the natives of the area are doing these kind of these singing and these calls and stuff. It makes you like eerie and unsettling. All the sounds really help build the atmosphere and the tension. Then you add the music on top of that. Well, fuck it's just a great stew. Exactly. The characters, which we had mentioned earlier, another hallmark of this movie, they stand out so much. They're so well defined. There's not one person who's like the other. They're all completely different. It certainly helps because it makes the movie colorful and a lot more enjoyable. And it adds to the humor too a lot of times, right? The least memorable character in the movie is the main character. It's Boyd, played by Guy Pierce, kind of lame and has like barely any lines. I think a brilliant script. I agree. Every piece of dialogue is almost has a double meaning. Like every sentence that is spoken, it means almost two things. What's being said and then there's the underlying thing, which after watching the movie, maybe a second time you'll, okay, I get that now. I love movies like that where you have to think about it and you get it later. Yeah. A lot of good lines in this movie too. It's lonely being a cannibal. Tough making friends. Yeah. That's been great lines. It's true. Stoo, a la Major Knox. And when he's all making it, Major Knox, can I help Colonel? Not now. Perhaps later you may contribute. And he does. And that Stoo looks awesome too. I want to eat it. Funny enough where, you know, there's a scene where Boyd, played by Guy Pierce, is forced to eat this human stew. And in reality, it was a lamb stew, but Guy Pierce being a vegetarian was forced to not ingest it, but he had to have it in his mouth. And as soon as the director yelled, cut it, spit it out. Which is interesting, actually, because you're suffering for your art a little bit there. Another good thing about this movie is the way it looks. People don't look all clean and pristine, you know, their teeth look rotten and they're dirty. And yeah, they're not wearing makeup. Yeah, it looks like it takes place when it's supposed to take place. It's not Hollywood eyes. Exactly. Yeah. It really does a good job of drawing you in and making you feel like you're part of this cast or crew, right? To delve a little deeper into it might possibly be tackling the morality of addiction, right? Yeah. As they get into this Windigo and how it takes these people over. And there's no way to get rid of this Windigo. Yeah. It's part of you. You're living with it forever. The only way to get rid of it is to die. Yeah. Right? And that's what addiction is. You live with it the rest of your life. Yeah. We're struggling to think of any movies that are sort of similar to this and Terror at the Red Wolf Inn kind of comes to mind. Which we just covered. Yeah. And if you happen to have watched it and liked it, you're probably like this movie because it deals with cannibalism. There's humor. That black comedy type of humor, you know, but it really is a movie that stands on its own and there's not really anything like it as far as subject matter, the style of it. Yeah. The humor, the music, the characters. It's all so original. There's nothing like this movie out there. So if you like period pieces, smart script, funny script, and a black comedy, check out Ravinous. And then make a stew after. Yeah. Or maybe watch it while you're eating stew. Yeah. And then try to sleep and not have that music stuck in your head. Walnut Boyd.