RAW – Review

Foreground, left to right: Adrian (Rabah Nait Oufella) looks on as Justine (Garance Marillier) is fed a taste of meat by her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf), in the French horror film RAW. Courtesy of Focus World ©

The French-language horror film RAW has been called a coming-of-age story and, in a way, it is – if you might be a cannibal. Written and directed by Julia Ducournau, RAW is one gripping horror film. In her debut feature, the writer/director does an excellent job creating an unnerving scary atmosphere, and inserting layers of symbolism under the horror.

Gruesome, gory and intelligent, cannibalism is a central part of this disturbing thriller set in veterinary college in a French rural location. The film can be seen as a metaphor of sorts for the excesses of college freshman, once parents are far away, but few party schools can match the excesses of this vet school. Unlike horror movies where the gore is the whole show, RAW adds in layers of depth that make it a much higher caliber of horror. This is one scary, disturbing movie, but one that gives the audience something to think about too.

Young, innocent and brilliant Justine (Garance Marillier) is a committed vegetarian like her doting parents. She is the family’s star, the brilliant straight A student who is about the start schooling to become a veterinarian. Her older sister, the family rebel, is already studying there, also training to become a vet like their parents.

When her parents drop Justine off at the college, which is in a remote location, her sister is not there to meet her as she had promised. Still Justine makes her way to her room, and meets her assigned roommate, a gay man named Adrian (Rabah Nait Oufella). Once in her room, her wilder older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) does appear, both teasing Justine and helping her.

Classes start right away, and so does the hazing that the freshmen are expected to endure. Unlike in American schools, hazing is still an old tradition new students must endure. Since these student are studying to be veterinarians, it shouldn’t be surprising that gory stuff is part of that hazing.

Being doused with animal blood (evoking images of CARRIE) and then photographed for a class photo in their blood-soak lab coats is one the hazing traditions Justine’s parents told her to expect. A strict vegetarian, she is less prepared to be expected to eat a raw rabbit kidney. She has never eaten meat before, and the taste of raw flesh brings out a strange reaction in Justine, sending her to the health clinic. It also awakens a hunger she has never known.

There is a vampire-type theme to this tale along with the cannibalism that crops up. There is also the usual coming-of-age experiences that expects at college, and the kinds of excesses that the over-protected are especially prone to.

Besides the hazing, veterinary education includes plenty of gory stuff – hands-on lab work including surgery, treatment and dissections of animals such as horses, cows and dogs, besides the lectures on physiology and all the tests. Justine’s reputation as a scholar has proceeded her, raising expectations from faculty but doing nothing to impress her fellow students. She’s just another freshman who has to endure the hazing.

Her sister Alexia seems to show little sympathy – she already endured it herself – but eventually takes little sister under her wing, in her own brash, rebellious way. Still, the sisters retain a kind of sibling rivalry, and the older one alternates between ignoring the younger one and showing her the ropes of college life, Meanwhile, Justine bonds in particular with her handsome roommate Adrian, who becomes her study partner, and goes clubbing with her and on runs to a local convenience store/ truck stop to get fast food.

With the remote location and the vet school’s inherent carnage, sheltered good girl Justine starts to lose her footing. Marillier’s delicate, innocent face helps in drawing us into this unfolding nightmare, and her reserved demeanor is perfectly contrasted by Rumpf’s more demonic character. When midway through the movie, Justine becomes what we would call a monster, Marillier has built up such sympathy for her with the audience, that we are torn by the change, just as Justine herself is.

Alexia has developed some unsettling habits at school, and after an accident in which Justine discovers a horrifying craving, Alexia decides to introduce her sister to her new hobby. The scenes are some of the most chilling of an already chilling film.

Throughout, Ducournau shows herself a master of pacing, and of what to reveal and when. Visual imagery adds to the eerie feeling, whether open, empty landscapes, stormy skies, or claustrophobic darken night spots or sterile cavernous dissection labs.

It is hard to find a fresh take in the horror genre but RAW succeeds in doing just that, in grand creepy fashion. One thing is certain after seeing RAW: you will never look at vegetarians the same way.

RATING: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

RAW opens in St. Louis March 31st exclusively at The Chase Park Plaza Cinema