A slap in the vagina with a piece of veal to vegans and vegetarians, RAW is about a couple of cannibal sisters who certainly like their meat rare.

These self same samplers of human flesh and sinew are veterinarian science students at a well heeled university, where fees cost an arm and a leg.

This is the alma mater of their parents, so they are carrying on an alpha tradition.

Another tradition that runs deep in the family is their dedicated veganism, so when initiation rituals include meat eating and blood splattering, we know we are in for some extreme angst, conflict and life altering experience.                        

Did such hazing practices exist in the days of their folks? And if so, why send them there?

This is one of the many mysteries that garnish this tasteless treat, the queer peer pressure presented in its cinematic cousin, Carrie.

RAW can be viewed as a cautionary tale of home beauty therapy, where the application of depilation can lead to amputation. A Brazilian goes bizarrely bad resulting in a frenzy of finger food.

RAW is metaphor for metamorphoses from adolescence to adulthood, from shrugging off the chrysalis of protective parenthood and taking frightful flight into the big scary world.

References to the Marquis de Sade and David Cronenberg abound. Writer director Julia Ducournau gives her main character the name of Justine, played by Garance Marillia, and it is her story of abuse and sexual awakening and animal appetite that forms the main trajectory of the tale.

Totally entwined with this tract is her sibling, Alexia, played with audacious rump by Ella Rumpf, a catalyst into the carnal and carnivore.

Shot in raw, high contrast by Ruben Impens, RAW is a ghoulish goulash of neo-Gothic garnished with gender and body issue provocations.

Bon appetit!