RAW has been on the watchlist for a while, but put off again and again as we tend to watch movies over dinner and I had heard this one was a little…
tough.
And oh boy, is it.
As a fairly seasoned horror fan it takes as certain calibre of imagery to rattle my terror cage, but the scenes in Raw? They work. Jesus they work.
The key is the relatability, whilst the denouement is (hopefully) fairly out of bounds for most of us, the lions share of the early shocks are itchy, knee-skinning, toe-stubbing affairs.
Stab happy clowns may work for some, but an incompetent bikini wax leading to a wound horrifically plausible in my own kitchen is what gets me squirming.
I would give the movie a couple of dings though.
There is a definite loss of coherence in the last third as the repulsive hazing rituals of the school left me wondering as to the status of some of our protagonists’ behaviours were in this world.
In addition, the odd choice of a gay/not-gay/gay-again/housemate/love-interest seemed to pull at a few too many extra threads in an already heady brew of clashing identities and hungers.
All reservations aside, this is a ferocious, voracious directorial debut.
