If You Like Yellowjackets, Ravenous Will Help Curb Your Cannibal Horror Appetite
Even though "Yellowjackets" fans are always hungry for more, the Showtime series' sophomore season has come to an end. Season 3 has already been confirmed, but it'll be a while before it airs; for what it's worth, the gap between seasons 1 and 2 was 16 months, the former beginning on November 14, 2021, and the latter on March 24, 2023.
Fear not, antler queens, because there's a movie out there perfect to tide you over. "Ravenous," directed by the late Antonia Bird. Released in 1999, the film's genre is just as hard to pin down as that of "Yellowjackets" — "Ravenous" oscillates from horror to bemused comedy, sometimes in the same scene. What the two works do have in common is that they're both stories about people on the edge of civilization, goaded by supernatural forces to devour their fellow man.
Guy Pearce plays John Boyd, a cowardly soldier fighting in the Mexican-American war. Boyd became an accidental hero when he played dead during battle and was hauled behind enemy lines with his really-dead comrades. Boyd's commanding officer General Slauson (John Spencer), unsure whether to punish or reward him, reassigns him to the Sierra Nevada to keep him out of sight, out of mind. Boyd has barely had time to settle in at the sparsely-populated outpost when weary traveler F.W. Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) shows up, claiming his traveling party is being held hostage by its guide, Colonel Ives, who went mad and cannibalistic.
Boyd and co. leave on a rescue mission and what follows is one of the wildest B-movie horror rides you'll ever take.
Folk horror in the woods
"Yellowjackets" and "Ravenous" take place over a century apart. Geographically, though, the settings are more simpatico: the wild, wintery woods of the North American West. The cautionary tale endemic to both is that when people are cut off from civilization, they become little more than beasts. Among beasts, the law of the jungle — eat or be eaten — rules.
"Yellowjackets" is folk horror, something that caught star Christina Ricci off guard. However, while season 2 got more explicit about the supernatural, the specifics of the thing in the woods that continues haunting the characters remain vague. Plus, the symbols related to it, from the mysterious insignia to the eyeless man that Taissa (Tawny Cypress) sees, are fictitious. However, the mysterious antler queen gives a hint at where the series might be going and overlap with "Ravenous."
"Ravenous" draws on the real-life myth of the Wendigo. An evil spirit conceived of by Native Americans, the Wendigo is a humanoid monster that can possess humans and consume their flesh. Alternatively, men become Wendigos through cannibalism. The creature is often depicted with antlers in modern pop culture (despite that not being part of the original myths), so the choice in "Yellowjackets" to give a cannibal queen an antler crown seems pointed.
There is no monstrous, antlered Wendigo in "Ravenous." Rather, the film goes with the interpretation of the myth as men becoming monsters. Colonel Ives discovered that consuming human flesh grants superior strength and healing — cannibalism cured his tuberculosis — and now he intends to create a colony of Wendigos. As he tells Boyd, "Eat to live, don't live to eat."
Robert Carlyle steals the show
"Ravenous" has a fantastic supporting cast. Jeffrey Jones' presence as Colonel Hart is hard to stomach thanks to his sex offender status, but thankfully he's not the only character actor on set. Neal McDonough, David Arquette, and Jeremy Davies all have memorable parts, but small ones since none of their characters are long for the mortal plane. Nothing to fear, though, because their murderer steals the show.
Yes, it turns out that Colqhoun is none other than Ives himself. The prisoners he claimed "Ives" was keeping are already dead and he really went to the fort looking for more food — as well as potentially some companions.
It's hard to describe Carlyle's charm as an actor; he's charismatic but radiates a sinister presence. The charisma comes almost in spite of himself, You know you shouldn't like his characters, but part of you wants to. The film's second half is Ives trying to convince Boyd into joining him (the former is put in command of the fort by an unknowing General Slauson) so Carlyle's unique presence isn't just a bonus for the film, but an absolute necessity.
After "Ravenous," you'll be feeling voracious for more of Carlyle's villain performances and then upset when you learn your options are scant besides "Eragon" or "Once Upon A Time."
Black Comedy
"Ravenous" sounds a lot like a nasty little exploitation movie, akin to "Cannibal Holocaust." What keeps it from being pure grime is its sense of humor. It can toggle between those two moods with the flip of a switch.
Let's set the scene. Boyd and Private Reich (McDonough) have finished investigating the cannibal cave and realized the truth about Ives. They rush out of the cave in vain trying to warn their comrades, while Ives is digging through the ground for a knife he hid like a wolf retrieving a buried bone. The orchestral score keeps up a relentless pace as the editing deploys close-ups of all the characters in rapid succession, keeping the audience on their toes.
Then the suspense pays off with a burst of violence, Ives slaughtering everyone except Private Toffler (Davies). Instead, the Colonel dares the private to run. When the chase begins, gone is the ominous score that had been beating in the audience's eardrums. Instead, the score turns into a Banjo theme right out of a Benny Hill sketch.
"Yellowjackets" has a similarly dark, sometimes abrupt sense of humor. Take the scene in episode 8, "Flight of the Bumblebee," where Misty (Christina Ricci) barges into Natalie's (Juliette Lewis) hotel room to stop her from snorting coke. The scene's music stops when Misty bursts through the door, underlining the physical comedy of the scene, from Natalie following over headfirst to the two women throwing hands.
Whether in "Yellowjackets" or "Ravenous," these sudden tone shifts may get your jaw to drop, but they will definitely have you laughing
Queerness
The only woman in "Ravenous" is Martha (Sheila Tousey), sister of the fort's Native-American tracker George (Joseph Runningfox). On the other hand, women are the leads of "Yellowjackets" and the men are supporting characters. What the two works' gender dynamics have in common is queerness.
"Yellowjackets" has multiple gay characters. While such relationships are still taboo in 1996, Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Van (Liv Hewson) are together — it turns out Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) is in the closet too. With the two timelines, the series tracks how social acceptance of queerness progressed from 1996 to 2021; the adult Taissa (Tawny Cypress) is married to Simone (Rukiya Bernard).
"Ravenous," owing to the setting and the era of its making, goes for queer coding instead; horror has always been the genre refuge for this. The second half of the film is about Ives trying to seduce Boyd, who is tempted but resistant. Moreover, the Colonel only seems interested in recruiting men as Wendigos; Hart is the first to join him and before Boyd's rebellion, Ives has eyes on Slouson as well.
Critics and fan artists alike have run with the idea that Ives and Boyd lust for each other. Samantha McLaren of Gayly Dreadful points to a scene where Ives sucks on Boyd's bleeding fingers; the sexual imagery is obvious, but it also evokes vampirism. Vampires are basically cannibals and Ives' attempts at converting Boyd recall how Vampires can create more of their kind with a sensual, penetrating bite to the neck. The coding comes full circle as Vampires have been reclaimed as a queer archetype. Bring on "Yellowjackets" season 3 to see if the series will traffic in bloodsucking symbolism with its cannibals.
"Yellowjackets" is available on Showtime and Paramount+. "Ravenous" is available to rent or buy on platforms including YouTube, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, and VUDU.