It’s October, so it’s Pumpkin Spice Month! Well, it is, but more importantly, it is the spookiest time of the year. Since it’s Halloween Month, each AHFW Movie of the Week will be a horror film. Let’s kick off the fun with an eerie cannibal story set in a Belgian veterinary school…of all places.
“Raw” (2016) – Justine’s (Garance Marillier) parents drop her off at veterinary school, and she feels a bit nervous about her new journey. Her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), already studies there and should be an obvious friendly face, but the college feels like a horror show, as the upper classmen constantly haze the younger students. Under a backdrop of very disturbing, organized teasing, a more gruesome horror show rises when Justine – a vegetarian – acquires her first taste of meat. Writer/director Julia Ducournau weaves an unseemly tale of twisted hunger in a supposed bastion of learning. Filmed in Belgium, this movie keeps the audience off-balance through a story of personal despair via uncontrollable primal urges that cross an extremely taboo human boundary. A highly effective and deeply disturbing horror movie.
⭐⭐⭐ 1/2 out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Image credits: Focus World; Trailer credits: Moviefone
