Sightlines · reception
How Raw was received
2017 · Julia Ducournau · Raw on Sightlines
The arc
In 2016–17 the headlines were all about paramedics and fainting audience members at its TIFF Midnight Madness screening; once the smelling salts wore off, it settled in as a tender coming-of-age film in horror clothing — and after Ducournau won the Palme d'Or for Titane, Raw got retroactively canonized as the debut that announced her.
What’s debated
Fans still argue that the fainting-and-barf-bag hype mis-sold it: is Raw really an extreme-gore endurance test, or a sisterhood/coming-of-age drama that squeamish headlines scared the wrong audience away from?
Its footprint
The fainting reports became the marketing — Alamo Drafthouse famously handed out branded barf bags at screenings, turning the film into shorthand for 'the movie people passed out at,' and it's now a fixture of every 'modern female-directed horror' list.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd-era staple of the elevated-horror and women-in-horror canon — the 'you must have seen this' entry point to Ducournau before Titane.
Did you know? At its 2016 Toronto Midnight Madness premiere, paramedics were reportedly called after audience members fainted — a story that made international news and did more for the film's profile than any trailer.
Named by the director
- David Cronenberg — Ducournau repeatedly named Cronenberg as her formative body-horror influence in interviews around Raw's release.
- The Fly (1986) — She cited it as a favorite — a body-horror film she praised for being, at heart, a love story about a transforming body.