"Raw" a non-reboot horror movie review

A screening at a Toronto Movie Festival supposedly had people fainting and vomiting. What movie could this be? Me interest is instantly peaked. I mean how often do people barf and faint at a horror movie now?

Well it is a film called Raw. It is a French-Belgium co-op film, where it is called “Grave” there. Hmmm…now I’ve gone from peaked interest to a bit skeptical. I think I smell pretentious artsy-fartsy French “horror” movie coming.

“Raw”

The film opens on a road with a person walking down the side. A car approaches and the person dives in front of it causing the car to swerve and wreck.

Now cut to a family of three eating lunch. They are all super vegans. Why well because mom loses her shit when a tiny piece of meat ends up in daughter Justine’s mashed potatoes. They have stopped for snack on the way to veterinary school (which is also next to a medical school ) where they just leave her and drive away. Best of luck kid. Mommy and daddy seem to not care about you.

Justine, and all the new students, are then rigors hazed. Cue horrible music, flashing lights, dancing, drinking and such. Well then cue an attempt at upper classmen messing with newbies too. Along the way we are introduced to Alexia, Justine’s older sister who is also attending the vet school, because why not. The film now turns into an attempt at hazing, class room work and free time where there is studying and such. Eventually, we get to a plot point. The plot point.

1st year vet student? Here be coated in animal blood and then eat a raw rabbit kidney.

She has the meat sweats!

It is a morning of messing with underclassmen. They are all made to line up and eat a raw rabbit kidney and then take a shot of something. Why? I have no idea what the significance is, but I’m also not a French vet school student. Justine won’t do it due to being ultra-vegan. Her sister calls her out and makes her do it. You know to save the embarrassment. Well this goes badly as Justine breaks out in a horrible rash. She then starts to crave animal meat. Oh no!

Well now the film gets even worse as Justine is having this change that causes her to hallucinate which causes a bunch of pretentious art house film shots and scenes. It all culminates in a night where her and her sister are drinking and then getting a Brazilian wax. Yeah older sister giving younger sister a Brazilian wax? Well waxing goes wrong. Scissors are needed. Justine jumps. Alexia cuts off a finger and passes out. Justine rushes around to save said finger and then eats it! Older sister wakes up to see younger sister eating finger.

(insert low hanging fruit joke about KFC here)
One of the scenes that made people puke I guess, A.K.A. the first real bit of "gore" in the movie.

Jump to next day and time for some sister bonding. Alexia takes Justine out to talk. This must be about the finger incident right? A walk down an empty road later and well anyone with even a few brain cells know what is going to happen. That’s right. Alexia jumps in front of a car and causes a wreck. She then starts to nibble on the passenger. Justine is appalled and walks back to school but not before taking off her shirt. You know when I’ve seen a horrible event I strip my top and go walk for a few miles.

The film now turns even more artsy-fartsy with scenes of Justine trying to deal with her new issue. A party where she is covered in paint. Trying to eat people and not eat people tripe. Bad music. We have numb walking. Fever dreams under the sheets. There is a sister on sister fight where they have to be restrained by the student s like animals on leashes….because the message being told in the film wasn’t obvious enough already. A pointless sex scene with her gay male roommate. Yeah forgot to mention that bit of strangeness. A male roommate in college? I guess in Europe it is no big deal.

Look the sisters are fighting like animals.
Metaphors. We get it!

 This all culminates in a night where Alexia and Justine party too hard. Justine wakes up next to male roommate. She is bloody. His leg has been turned into a tasty snack. He also has a back wound which killed him. Alexia is all covered in blood and looking like she ate way too much. Alexia of course goes to jail where she will eat prisoners I guess?

Then we jump to the end twist that everyone should have seen coming from miles away. You know why mom is such a bitch about the family being ultra-vegan. She passed the meat crazies onto her daughters. She has been using dad for snacks for years! OH MY GOD! WHAT A TWIST! ARRRAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This movie is abysmal. Who the Hell is barfing during this film? Who fainted? Seriously? Did they show this to a room full of anti-meat activists who have never seen a film with blood in it before? Were they all people that have haemophobia, erythrophobia or whatever fear of eating people meat-ophobia would be? People fainted and barfed? Who are these weak excuses for humanity and how can I ensure I am never near them?!

"You gonna finish this or can I have it?"
(the big gore shot of the film right here)

The gore here is minimal. You see worse on a network procedural or any basic cable zombie show. A human finger and a leg are a bit chewed on with any detail. The car crash victims are not show being eaten. Hell you barely even see them post accident. People are applauding and decrying the blood and gore here, but I have no idea where that gore is. Blerg!

-The movie is just so boring.

-The characters are wildly underdeveloped.

-Their relationships are trivial and annoying.

-The music is beyond awful.

-They beat you over the head with the message eating meat is bad!  See how bad eating meat is! Look what eating meat 
does! MEAT!!!!!!

-Then there are the metaphors for wanting the forbidden, cannibalism is a symbol for sex,  and a school = a slaughterhouse. Yeah we get it already! Enough with the visual symbolism.

-There are no explanations for anything and just so many stupid events occurring. For instance the worst offender. Alexia loses a finger and passes out for the sight of it. Umm…..minutes later she is chewing on a dead guy’s bloody head (we think since it is never fully shown). Why would this bother her? She eats people that she has a role in killing! She is fine seeing their blood and bits. This is just so dumb!

WAIT!

There is a scene where Justine eats her hair due to being nervous I guess? She then spends a comical amount of time barfing it out. This might be horrifying to some. Disturbing to others. For me it was hysterical. It goes on for several minutes nonstop. It felt like a bad comedy bit from those Tim and Eric guys or an unused “Naked Gun” movie bit. It was just so amazingly bad it became laughable instead of horrifying.  

“Raw” is an abysmal film! It is an attempt to shock that fails at that and also at horror. The only horrifying event is that I made it through the entire 90 minutes of this audio/visual turd!

The only people who like it must be the tiresome pseudo-artistic gang that probably hate themselves for actually liking big budget Hollywood movies. Well that and the usual conceited arthouse film crowd who just love to salivate over tripe like this.