In recent years horror has been becoming more polarized between the psychological (The Babadook, The Witch, even Get Out) and the bloody (Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Human Centipede). One works by toying with the mind, exploring the semantics of what is scary. The other takes a lazier approach.
'Raw' follows an unlikely story that is amplified beyond recognition. A girl named Justine is dropped off at veterinarian school by her two parents and told to be good. At this school is already Justine's older sister, Alexia. What you might expect of a medical school is far from the truth. The first years are submitted to deplorable hazing rituals that would make someone like Carrie feel a little bit better about herself. They are drenched in animal blood, made to crawl on hands and knees naked, and forced to drink themselves to fatigue at all-night ragers in the dormitory basement. What ever happened to adult supervision? As another test, these pledges are forced to eat rabbit kidneys. Justine's problem? Why she's a vegetarian of course.
The innocent act of eating this bit of flesh sets off a reaction in Justine that she can't understand. She soon develops an unquenchable taste for meat in whatever form she can take. She begins by sneaking a juicy hamburger out of the cafeteria in her lab coat. Then it's devouring raw chicken from her mini-fridge for breakfast. Next she is chewing on a severed finger the way a dog gnaws on a bone. Gross right?
The basic premise of the film doesn't come into focus until the last few minutes of the film when we discover that Justine is sort of genetically-programmed to enjoy raw meat. It's in her blood, from her sister to her mother and Lord knows how high up the chain it goes. It can be curbed as long as these girls aren't given meat in their diet. Even the smallest bite will set it off. They're like French vampires without the sex appeal and charm.
Did I enjoy the film? No. For first-time director Julia Ducournau the look of the film is the one true success, a visual story that works well in tracking a descent into Hell. The rest of the film is downright silly and with few redeeming qualities to it. With little more than the premise of "vegetarian finds comfort in red meat," the story panders along through gratuitous nudity and a barrage of shocking images that allegedly made filmgoers walk out by the dozens at the Toronto Film Festival. I like a movie with brains, and with a horror movie I don't just mean the craving of zombies. If you want strictly gore then at least make a scary movie to excite the viewers. If you want anything more, have the script to back it up. This movie succeeds at neither. A better title might have been "Stale."
No comments:
Post a Comment