Raw (2016) - Horror Film Review

It is the week of viewing films I have yet to see that have earned nominations in the 2017 Fright Meter Awards, today (well a few days back when I wrote this post) is the day of Raw: a French language horror that is up for Best Makeup. This is the second film I have seen this week that I recognise as a good film yet did not enjoy watching, though for different reasons than with Personal Shopper.

16 year old Justine (Garance Marillier) has gone to start vet school, it is the same place that her wild older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) attends. Justine has been a vegetarian her whole life but during a hazing ritual she is made to eat meat. This has a bizarre effect on her as she discovers a side to her that she never knew existed, and soon she finds herself hungry for meat of any kind...

I do not enjoy gross horror films, I also do not like cringe worthy moments in any sort of media, and Raw has plenty of those moments, so many that I lost count of the times I had to pause the film and look away grimacing. Film like this are the very reason I made the rule not to eat food of any kind while watching horror as this really put me off wanting any dinner today. I'm giving this movie a low score and that is no slight to it, it is just it made me feel really queasy watching it which is not a nice feeling, it is not something made for me to watch. First of all the whole setting of the vet school was horrifying to me in that the newbies are put through awful ordeals such as having buckets of blood thrown over them, paint thrown over them, made to crawl around on all fours, and mattresses thrown out their windows. This is all extroverted fun I am sure but I would just want to curl up in a cupboard and hide for the entire week.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) - Horror Film Review

It is that time of year again when I am desperately trying to burn through the list of films I want to watch for the annual Fright Meter Awards. With The Autopsy of Jane Doe recently being added to Netflix in the UK I put it to the top of my 'to-watch' list, mainly because I was really impressed with The Corpse of Anna Fritz and thought this may be something similar.

Police investigating the crime scene of a family who were all discovered murdered in mysterious circumstances are shocked to discover in the basement the half buried corpse of a beautiful young woman (Olwen Kelly). This body is taken to the local morgue that is run by Tommy (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch), they are told the autopsy of the woman is needed by morning so that the police will have a complete story to tell to the press. The two start the examination, but through the night the more they proceed the more strange and illogical things they discover about the corpse, and too late begin to realise that they may have stumbled upon something truly terrifying...

The mystery of the corpse is what kept me glued to the screen watching this, I loved how the body was like a puzzle box in that the more the two cut it apart and examine its parts the more mystery they uncover. It starts off simply enough with the fact that the corpse is not a fresh one, yet there is no rigor mortis present. It deepens with the discovery of the severe damage done to the internal organs that the outer body should have showed signs of. By the time the duo discover the inside layer of her skin has been tattooed with strange symbols the slow build up of horror really boils over. This slow drip feed of unnatural horror was fascinating to watch, helped in no end by the performance of seasoned actor Cox who gives a great performance as the middle aged mortician. It seems silly to praise the acting of Kelly as she literally lays on a slab for the majority of the film, yet there was something deeply unsettling about her look. I particularly loved that the camera kept going back to her face with a close up, each time the way her mouth was slightly open led me to think she was suddenly going to break out into a grin, she never did but that shot still was unsettling each time.