Raw: The First Horror Movie to Make Me Physically Sick

 

Credit to Google

I can stomach a lot of horror movies, no matter how brutal and gut wrenching the film can be. Very few have defeated me, shattering my mind into a thousand pieces like accidentally dropping a vase. I will admit, movies involving horror themes of cannibalism can be a tough watch for me, but I can handle the level of gore that occurs throughout the film. 

One particular film that left me deflated like a balloon was the film, Raw. It was directed by Julia Ducournau, and was released in 2017. I had heard online from the horror community that this film was a must watch, because of the story and the brutality that follows.

Since Sundays for me are considered to be my ‘cheat days,’ where I consume junk food as much as I desire; I decided to watch Raw while sitting down to enjoy my snacks. I remembered my mini snack bar as if it were yesterday: Hot Cheetos, a single cupcake, Pepsi, and a bunch of Nerds. 

I deeply regretted eating during the film. For the first time, I stopped eating my snacks during the movie, I couldn’t eat anymore after the insanity I witnessed. Raw is a very, very tough watch. I did not expect it be…well….raw. The violence depicted in the film was way too real for me, and it feels like I’m watching something I’m not supposed to.

The story follows a young girl named Justine, a vegetarian entering veterinary school, where she must eat meat to prove her worth among her fellow peers. She suddenly becomes extremely addicted to eating meat, her hunger evolving toward, you guessed it, human meat. 

The story then takes a much darker turn, when you realize that her own sister who is in the same school as her, also craves human flesh. 

What happens next is a journey among the two sisters, as Justine tries her best to battle the cannibal within her. Unfortunately, she struggles to take down her evil side, and she gives in to eating people. No surprise there, right? Typical cannibal plot line. 

What took me out was the utter rawness of the main protagonist eating human body parts for the first time.

Credit to Google

In the very first scene she experiences eating human parts, is when she decides to eat her sister’s own finger; after accidentally cutting off her finger with scissors. She dug at her sister’s own finger with her teeth, and this is when I began to feel sick. I started picturing my Hot Cheetos to be literal fingers, and I pushed my plate away from me, afraid I was going to vomit. 

I have seen thousands of people getting eaten alive in so many different forms of media, so how the hell did this film take me out? 

I think it was due to the sound effects when either of the sisters was having a feast. It is a very realistic sound, and the visuals of Justine tearing into that finger was like watching a dog with a chew toy.

I thought this would be the only scene to sicken me, but it only got worse from here. The downfall of Justine’s character struggling to fight against her dark side took a toll on me. I found myself feeling unhappy as the film progressed, watching her experience disturbing sequences one by one. 

I don’t know what it was, it could have been the brutality of the film itself, but I also felt completely nauseated as Justine struggled in her personal life to sustain herself. It didn’t help that her sister purposefully crashed a vehicle to kill two people to lick at an open scalp exposing brain (I wish I were making that up, but the older sister was determined to prove her point about why they should embrace their cannibalistic selves).

Raw is a coming-of-age story, about a young woman too afraid to move on with her life. She knows that a tough journey is awaiting her in the long run, her cannibalistic side is the life she is scared to lead. Many people who are afraid to face reality go through this, sometimes we are in situations that we believe we can’t ever escape from. We become stuck in a sort of cycle, too afraid to break the wheel, afraid that we will screw up in the long run of our new journey. 

The ending to Raw proves this point, when Justine’s father reveals to her that she will be able to overcome her hunger one day, it will just take time. He opens his shirt to reveal that her own mother has been feasting on him, proving that Justine was born with her mom’s disturbing tendencies. Justine lets her tears fall, as her father gives her an assuring look, letting her know that everything will be okay.

Maybe my sickness during the movie was exactly that, perhaps I was too afraid of the journey that was awaiting me after I graduated from college. I’m still currently going through this, my plan didn’t exactly pan out the way I wanted it to after I graduated from university, but I know that everything will pay off after all my hard work. 

I just need to figure out how to break the cycle!

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn