Raw – This Movie's Hiding Something

We’re back to looking at films from lists of movies that make people physically sick. Raw (2016) was up there for freaking people out with fantastic practical effects, mimicking body parts to be eaten. And this French film certainly has – a lot going on.

The premise – a strict vegetarian is swept up in the ‘initiation’ culture of her veterinary college, breaks her vegetarianism, and finds that she likes meat a lot more than she initially thought. Human meat, to be exact.

It sounds like a good, tongue-in-cheek premise that could have something to say about vegetarian/meat culture if it tried hard enough. Unfortunately, this movie takes so long getting to the point, that I checked out and watched a recap video instead of finishing it off.

Because, yes, the physical body parts being munched on, along with the sound effects, are stomach churning to be sure. First, you have to sit through teenagers being made to wear diapers, girls weeing on a rooftop, and then a bikini wax scene that will haunt your nightmares. These three things together made me a little too uncomfortable to keep watching. Not because it was scary, or horrific, but because these all seem like things the weird part of the internet is into.

And the question is – was any of it necessary? On paper – maybe. To juxtapose the normal life Justine (Garance Mariller) has led until now and the extremity of this school – who are oddly hard on freshers. (Maybe things are different in top universities?) To show Alexia (Ella Rumpf) teaching her sister how to be ‘cool’? Then the weeing on a rooftop didn’t need to be so dragged out. In fact, there are a dozen other things that could replace any of these scenarios that don’t make me think someone behind the camera wanted to see something specific from these girls.

The further we get into the plot, the worse it gets. Justine has a roommate (Rabah Nait Oufella), who tells us within ten seconds of meeting us that he is gay. That’s why it’s okay that they can share a room. It’s poor logic and a seemingly strange decision – until they sleep together. Then it makes sense as lazy writing. To rub salt in the wound, the man who’s sole personality trait is ‘gay,’ then becomes prey to the Hannibal instinct. Does this count as bury your gays, or not? Either way, the only silver lining is that it makes for an intentionally amusing reveal. He’s been nibbled at the same way you’d nibble at that chicken in your fridge at 3 a.m, and Justine is much the same as you seeing the mess that you’ve made.

Perhaps the film does manage to pull itself together a little bit from here on out. The plot does dissolve into chaos, but the kind of gross-out-all-for-it chaos that makes it a horror you can’t look away from. The reveal at the end of the movie is also a clever idea that sets itself up for a sequel.

There’s not much else to say. The characters are two-dimensional, even for a horror movie, and the colour is bleached out of the movie.

Unfortunately, its all the filler in this movie that makes it truly un-stomachable. There are just way to many decisions that have a questionable motive for including, and that takes away from what the film wants us to be grossed out by.