I can appreciate the horror theme of cannibalism, although I religiously hold Hannibal Lecter as the only cannibal movie done right because it choose not to just focus on the shock and horror of gore but also include a psychological nature that wasn't encrypted, symbolic or metaphorically executed. It was in the open and allowed for an actually intriguing story to unfold as we got a mix of horror, gore, drama, romance and psychology all in one.
The problem most movies make nowadays alike Sci Fi copying Star Wars is that they don't understand how to make a movie alike the original. Instead they copy the themes and reckon the horror tropes, blood, and value of visuals will be sufficient.
I feel that Raw commits the same mistake. It tries so hard to magnify the suppressed desires of our lead character with various color palettes, hardcore music, overdone theatrics. And it basically turns into a complete horror show without the horror. Instead with dead corpses, blood, murder and outrageous actions that have no rhyme or reason other than to shock you and give you the impression of chaos, death, reveling in destruction and devouring of flesh.
THe issue with this is that the characters are poorly designed and their progress is forced and lackluster. For instance. The lead characters sister by accident loses her finger. She faints by watching this event. Yet about 30 minutes later in the movie its revealed that shes a cannibal who has embraced her desires and she has no problem looking at blood, nor even biting people. One moment we think the lead character is unique and has gory pleasures, the next we discover that the entire freaking school is packed with freak shows.
And that's another thing that bothers me with thing. THe entire school is packed with your typical overblown frat groups. Messing up peoples bedrooms, tossing paint at people, embracing hedonism to insane extent. THe teachers don't care at all. Barely present. And basically. Its anarchy.
Yet hilariously the frat boys talk about freedom !!! yet 5 minutes later they force people to call them specific names per hierarchy, and enforce dress codes.
What the f. Freedom ... yeah right.
All in all, this movie annoyed me. Its packed with stereotypes, overblown frat dudes that just force you to be free by conforming to brainless mentality. And the biggest crime of this movie calling itself a horror is... that most of the really bad scenes actually occur WHEN OUR LEAD CHARACTER IS Subconscious. Meaning the evil and loss of control is not something we directly see happening. Only the aftermath. And sure its gory and all that. But honestly. The movie is non-sensical.
And that's why I used the word decadence in my title.
Because by the end of this movie that is the ultimate emotional expressal you experience. How its worn, how its tired, wrong feeling, sad and self destructive.
If that's what the director was aiming to nail, well done. You managed to capture that perfectly. But in my opinion, I don't see why we would want to experience this as viewers. You walk away feeling you've seen better, compared to Hannibal you never form a sense of catharsis. There is no greater knowledge gained from this. It has meant nothing.
And that's because you discover not only what I've mentioned but the story takes a detour when it begins to focus on a the lead characters sister instead until she gets captured, goes to jail for murdering someone. Multiple people actually. Completely unhinged but whatever.
And the baby sister with similar desires, for no bloody reason other than vegetarians tasting meat apparently triggers monstrous desires... life goes on only to discover that this apparently runs in the family. Being the cause of their vegetarianism.
Look. I get the gorefest here is to some peoples liking. But I didn't enjoy it. It felt overdone, unfinished, sporadic, lackluster and extremely over the top to the extent that I just shook my head at times.
The movie is decadent. Better movies have been done and those are the ones you should watch instead because they offer you an ending that actually gives you a sense of continuum with characters you enjoy, evil as they are. Sir Anthony Hopkins being a prime example, or Clarice Starling, being an incredibly interesting character.
Why do I keep referring to Hannibal? For 2 reasons. Its story and characters. Well written, well done, and they have much more to them than just this mix of teen rebelliousness and the metaphor for desire, lust, lack of control translated into hunger for flesh. Because that is what it is. Make no mistake.
We've seen the whole medical school gone nuts before. And it wasn't that well done the first time, nor second. And this movie is no different.
You walk away feeling meh because of how it ends, because of how everything transpired, because of this awful music that tries so hard to nail the sad, hopeless atmosphere, when its not riling up the inner demon within you to have sex with everything including the dead and murder people.
But yes. Enough of this rant/review. 3 out of 10. Absolutely tries to hard and ends up decadent, sad, without any catharsis WHATSOEVER. And the color palette amplifying the scenery, emotional turbulence manages only to capture death, sorrow, decay and rot. Even the sex scenes are touched by this. THe correlation between Hedonism and destruction in this movie served no purpose other than to annoy me.
Watch something else. Want psychological horror. Watch Hannibal. Want gore? Watch Eat from 2014, or Excision. Those movies do this better.
The problem most movies make nowadays alike Sci Fi copying Star Wars is that they don't understand how to make a movie alike the original. Instead they copy the themes and reckon the horror tropes, blood, and value of visuals will be sufficient.
I feel that Raw commits the same mistake. It tries so hard to magnify the suppressed desires of our lead character with various color palettes, hardcore music, overdone theatrics. And it basically turns into a complete horror show without the horror. Instead with dead corpses, blood, murder and outrageous actions that have no rhyme or reason other than to shock you and give you the impression of chaos, death, reveling in destruction and devouring of flesh.
THe issue with this is that the characters are poorly designed and their progress is forced and lackluster. For instance. The lead characters sister by accident loses her finger. She faints by watching this event. Yet about 30 minutes later in the movie its revealed that shes a cannibal who has embraced her desires and she has no problem looking at blood, nor even biting people. One moment we think the lead character is unique and has gory pleasures, the next we discover that the entire freaking school is packed with freak shows.
And that's another thing that bothers me with thing. THe entire school is packed with your typical overblown frat groups. Messing up peoples bedrooms, tossing paint at people, embracing hedonism to insane extent. THe teachers don't care at all. Barely present. And basically. Its anarchy.
Yet hilariously the frat boys talk about freedom !!! yet 5 minutes later they force people to call them specific names per hierarchy, and enforce dress codes.
What the f. Freedom ... yeah right.
All in all, this movie annoyed me. Its packed with stereotypes, overblown frat dudes that just force you to be free by conforming to brainless mentality. And the biggest crime of this movie calling itself a horror is... that most of the really bad scenes actually occur WHEN OUR LEAD CHARACTER IS Subconscious. Meaning the evil and loss of control is not something we directly see happening. Only the aftermath. And sure its gory and all that. But honestly. The movie is non-sensical.
And that's why I used the word decadence in my title.
Because by the end of this movie that is the ultimate emotional expressal you experience. How its worn, how its tired, wrong feeling, sad and self destructive.
If that's what the director was aiming to nail, well done. You managed to capture that perfectly. But in my opinion, I don't see why we would want to experience this as viewers. You walk away feeling you've seen better, compared to Hannibal you never form a sense of catharsis. There is no greater knowledge gained from this. It has meant nothing.
And that's because you discover not only what I've mentioned but the story takes a detour when it begins to focus on a the lead characters sister instead until she gets captured, goes to jail for murdering someone. Multiple people actually. Completely unhinged but whatever.
And the baby sister with similar desires, for no bloody reason other than vegetarians tasting meat apparently triggers monstrous desires... life goes on only to discover that this apparently runs in the family. Being the cause of their vegetarianism.
Look. I get the gorefest here is to some peoples liking. But I didn't enjoy it. It felt overdone, unfinished, sporadic, lackluster and extremely over the top to the extent that I just shook my head at times.
The movie is decadent. Better movies have been done and those are the ones you should watch instead because they offer you an ending that actually gives you a sense of continuum with characters you enjoy, evil as they are. Sir Anthony Hopkins being a prime example, or Clarice Starling, being an incredibly interesting character.
Why do I keep referring to Hannibal? For 2 reasons. Its story and characters. Well written, well done, and they have much more to them than just this mix of teen rebelliousness and the metaphor for desire, lust, lack of control translated into hunger for flesh. Because that is what it is. Make no mistake.
We've seen the whole medical school gone nuts before. And it wasn't that well done the first time, nor second. And this movie is no different.
You walk away feeling meh because of how it ends, because of how everything transpired, because of this awful music that tries so hard to nail the sad, hopeless atmosphere, when its not riling up the inner demon within you to have sex with everything including the dead and murder people.
But yes. Enough of this rant/review. 3 out of 10. Absolutely tries to hard and ends up decadent, sad, without any catharsis WHATSOEVER. And the color palette amplifying the scenery, emotional turbulence manages only to capture death, sorrow, decay and rot. Even the sex scenes are touched by this. THe correlation between Hedonism and destruction in this movie served no purpose other than to annoy me.
Watch something else. Want psychological horror. Watch Hannibal. Want gore? Watch Eat from 2014, or Excision. Those movies do this better.