Ravenous (1999)

“Ravenous” is as wildly offbeat onscreen as its behind-scenes history (rewrites, cast revolts, multiple directors) indicates. It veers shocker, horror, satire, comedy, drama, fantasty, and all-out Midnight Movie nuts. It is split open dripping guts on the floor. Oh so apt for a blood-soaked cannibal tale set in the 1870s California that marries Cormac McCarthy brooding to Stephen King camp, and featuring Guy Pearce as a haunted soldier and Robert Carlyle as … let’s call him mysterious. Pearce is a faux hero who took a dive in battle and is relegated to a western outpost with other rejects –- bookworms, stoners, drunks, and fundamentalists -– who are visited by man (Carlyle) who spins a tale of escaping a terrifying camp of cannibals. Our soldiers unwisely take action. I’ll stop there. Antonia Bird –- third hired director –- serves up a movie that’s all body parts, none a head, with Carlyle diving in madly with glee, and Pearce scrambling to keep up. The fight scenes are underdone, the comedy crashes into indigenous lore, but not a moment is boring. When a dead character reappears, you could fit a thigh in my mouth. B