Justine is a vegetarian, or at least she was. On first eating meat for the first time as part of a hazing, she develops an insatiable appetite for the stuff. Now for all the festival buzz about people fainting during screenings, Raw is a surprisingly reserved cannibal movie. It’s not an onslaught of gore, but a selective spattering over what would otherwise be a prototypical coming-of-age story of a young woman entering college. The movie leverages cannibalism as a unique metaphor to explore themes of maturity, sexuality, and womanhood. This unlikely gruesomeness pushed squarely into the chest of an otherwise commonplace story lends the film a surreal tone, a darkly twisted look at basic human experiences. It’s an impressive entry in independent horror, but a bit of an acquired taste.
