Ravenous (1999, 45%)
Raw (2017, 90%)

Cannibalism and female directors. Two great tastes that…I don’t know where I’m going with this. What I do know is you should check out Ravenous (directed by the late Antonia Bird) for a slice of biting, mordant horror. It stars Guy Pearce as a disgraced 19th century Army soldier banished to the High Sierras where he’s greeted by more soldiers with tales of a Wendigo nearby feeding on humans. Ravenous‘s setting was the last place I expected ’90s snark and attitude, but here we are — this is a movie as funny and as it is bloody.

Nearly two decades later comes Raw (written/directed by Julia Ducournau), an oppositional take on the cannibalism taboo. It’s set in contemporary Belgium and larded with symbolism, following a young vegan girl who begins craving human chops after a hazing ritual. Female coming-of-age stories are frequently attached to horror (where fear, sexuality, and ecstasy co-exist), but rarely ever this elegantly disgusting.