Ravenous - Friß oder stirb

Ravenous delivers the pure pleasure of seeing something that is completely out of the ordinary. The script is awfully perverted, but a hell of a lot of fun, full of cynicism and black humour. Carlyle and Pearce play their hearts out, and all the weirdness is underscored by the even freakier but exquisite music of Michael Nyman and Blur frontman Damon Albarn. Most importantly, watching this film will give you the valuable life lesson that eating human flesh is very healthy, but addictive. Don’t take it seriously :) (16.11.2003)

This movie is mouthwatering nutritious and tasty, full of unexpected ingredients and delicious acting performances. Robert Carlyle is simply awesome and Guy Pearce delivers us his standard performance at very least. Director Antonia Bird cooked up an excellent meal for the movie gourmet and I’m pleased it was traditional Czech-style cooking. - What are you cooking? - It’s uh... stew. - Need any help? - No, no, no. Perhaps later you might... contribute. (25.04.2010)

I wasn’t expecting something so good! Ravenous is precisely the kind of film that I like, i.e. a fairly untraditional story with amazing and expressive music. The cast, led by Robert Carlyle, deliver great performances, but my favourite was the role of my darling from Lost, Jeremy Davies. (25.04.2009)

Probably the only film of its kind. A black-humoured barrage with a strong horror touch and excellent actors, but unfortunately it runs out of steam with a sloppy script and strange stylistic gimmicks; especially in the first half, the quality and strong horror motifs are ruined by comedy bits and original, though from my point of view extremely inappropriate music. The direction is undoubtedly inventive and entertaining, and the film flies by quickly, but the story often teeters on the edge of, how shall I put this, grand illogical bullshit, and neither the central cannibal theme nor the mutual relationship between the hero and the villain develop or build up at all in the second half. Certainly a pity, at first I really enjoyed the unorthodox and unpredictable filmmaking. (09.04.2018)

Another film where I'm uncertain about the rating - it comes out to three and a half stars for me. If I lean towards four, it's for the originality of the screenplay, because such a bizarre story isn't often seen on the big screen and definitely represents a genre enrichment. The casting and performances are also very decent. Besides Robert Carlyle, who was supposed to be the main draw, the experienced Jeffrey Jones is also interesting. However, the impression is somewhat diminished by the genre ambiguity, as the film straddles the border between horror, black comedy, and western, unsure of which it wants to be more of. It can't fully satisfy fans of any of these genres - each might only get a piece of what they expected from the film. Overall impression: 70%. (18.06.2006)