Raw File (2025) Review

Synopsis

Following up on a questionable suicide, an investigator and her cameraman venture into an apartment complex looking for answers but instead find something terrifying roaming the corridors with them.

Good points

• Looks better than you’d expect for a low-budget found-footage film, and for something clearly made with limited resources, it still manages a fairly watchable visual style
  
  
• Some of the digital/supernatural effects are decent enough, where a few of the glitchy, unnatural moments are effective and don’t feel completely “cheap”
  
  
• The main idea (mystery around a suicide) is interesting enough at the start
  
  
• Some creepy imagery, featuring symbols and distorted visuals are among the better horror elements
  
  
• A few moments of decent tension, with the early hints of something being wrong handled better than the later payoff
  
  
• Cast plays it mostly straight, which helps the tone
  
  
• Some decent atmosphere in the quieter scenes, with the occasional effective use of silence and empty spaces
  
  
• You can see the effort put into the direction despite it’s obvious limitations
  
  
• Has a DIY charm if you know it’s low budget going in, so if you view it as a small indie effort, it’s easier to appreciate the attempt
  
  
• Tries to mix investigation with horror with a good effort to make it feel like a mystery being solved.
  

Bad points

• Story is confusing in places and doesn’t always explain itself, and key parts of the plot are left pretty vague
  
  
• The lead investigator comes off as pretty inconsistent and hard to understand at times
  
  
• A lot of scenes are just people walking through corridors or standing around
  
  
• Pacing is slow to the point it drags, and not much actually happens for long stretches
  
  
• Mystery elements are introduced but not fully developed, so while it does feature some interesting ideas, they don’t always feel like they are explored enough
  
  
• Wasn’t a fan of the ending, as I wanted more
  
  
• The horror elements don’t appear often enough to maintain the tension, and when the intended scares do happen, they aren’t good.
  
  
• Motivations for why people are doing the things they are aren’t always obvious
  
  
• It comes across as a collection of interesting parts that don’t fully click together and it’s a bit scattered overall.

Final Verdict on Raw File

It’s a low-budget found-footage ‘horror’ that looks better than it plays, as while the setup is interesting and there are a few creepy ideas and visuals, the story doesn’t really hold together and the pacing drags hard.

But there’s an effort here and you can see what it’s trying to do, but it never quite turns its ideas into something.

Raw File on IMDB
Raw File Trailer
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