Eating Raoul (1982)

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: A bland couple who need money to open a restaurant decide the best way to do so is by murdering and robbing swingers. Based on the Franklin D. Roosevelt biography of the same name. 

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I wasn’t so sure about this, but the credits list John Paragon and Edie McClurg, so how bad could it be??

• This is a tongue-in-cheek comedy, which is probably the hardest type of cheek to write about, but I’ll do my best. Well, not my best, but I’ll do something.

• Paul Bland works at a crappy liquor store but he’s a wine snob. I know it’s supposed to be a humorous situation but why would the liquor store need to hire anyone but a college dropout for that job?

• Mary Bland is a nurse who is just pretty enough to have male patients want to give them enemas.

• They both want to open a restaurant (hence the food theme!) but neither one of them currently works in the food service industry, which is strange. I don’t count a hole in the wall liquor store as the food service industry. Now we’re going to get letters.

• Apparently Paul and Mary’s apartment building is infested with swingers. I have the same thing at my house and nothing gets rid of them no matter how many glue traps I put out.

• Why don’t the Blands lock their door so swinger attacks stop happening? Anyway, Paul ends up killing the guy with a frying pan, even though Mary was three times his size.

• So the basic plot is that the Blands need $20,000 quick to buy a building for their restaurant. Why don’t they just open a fine wine and taco truck?

• I think their restaurant will be successful because Mary just cooked a raw chicken in 5 minutes. Or maybe it will be unsuccessful because she just cooked a raw chicken in 5 minutes.

• Ok, this is a dark comedy, not horror whatsoever, but I’m in to deep to turn back now.

• Hey is that John Landis in the bank? I don’t think he’s qualified to be in this movie, he’s only killed a grown man and two children.

EATING RAOUL, Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, 1982, TM & Copyright (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.

• Mary is a very attractive woman but not quite on the level where every single man in this movie is going crazy over her.

• Paul gets suckered out of 6 bottles of expensive wine. I can sympathize, I had a whole box of wine disappear while I was watching Blood Dolls.

• And here comes another guy to rape Mary. This is worse than The Nesting!

• They kill this guy and he has $500! This is turning out to be a lucrative business!

• Paul and Mary decide to put an ad in the paper pretending to be dominatrixesexes to attract perverts to kill for their money. This is capitalism at work! USA!

• This movie may be slightly boring but I love the performances from Paul and Mary so it keeps you engaged.

• Ahh, here’s Raoul! He’s there to put locks on the door so the Blands stop getting bothered by run-ins.

• You know, I kind of feel bad for these pervs. Sure, one was doing a Nazi fantasy with Mary, but does that necessarily mean he deserved to die? Ok, maybe that was a bad example.

• Raoul, who are you and how did you get in here? “I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith.”

• Raoul makes a deal with the Blands where they keep the cash off the pervs but he gets the bodies. Is he eating them? This movie needs more gore. Or maybe that would ruin it. What do I know.

• Oh Raoul is selling meat to meat merchants. They should show this movie at Harvard Business School.

• Hey Ed Begley Jr. is a hippie rapist! And he’s also in this movie!

• Hey I’m fine with all shapes and sizes and all but the average cocker spaniel has bigger boobs than Mary.

• Oh Raoul and Mary smoke weed and GET. IT. ON! WOO! WEE!

• When do they eat Raoul?

• Oh, Mary just did, if you know what I mean…

• Ohhh no, Raoul wants to take Paul out of the picture. Mary is just that fetching, I suppose.

• John Paragon! Mekka Lekka Hi Mekka Hiney Ho!

• I think Paul’s car may be Greased Lightning from Grease?

• With Raoul trying to kill Paul and Paul following Raoul around the movie kind of lost steam a bit.

• Raoul is selling the bodies to a dog food factory, which is what I assumed most dog food was made out of anyway.

• The Blands need to make their cash even faster so they go straight to a swingers party. As in to swing.

• Finally Edie McClurg! As a sexy swinger, the role she was born to play!

• Paul and Mary electrocute everyone there and sell their fancy cars. They’ll get at least $250 easy from this scheme!

• There are 7 minutes left and so far the movie title doesn’t make sense.

• So Raoul confronts Paul at their place, but Mary finally has enough of his dogstuff and kills him with the frying pan.

• Ohhhh, they have their real estate friend over for dinner and they eat Raoul. Spoiler alert, movie title!

• Of course, we all know what happens to Paul and Mary, they end up making snarky comments about the Killbots in Chopping Mall!

Final Thoughts: I enjoyed this picture. It doesn’t 100% work 100% of the time but it’s very charming and Paul and Mary are completely likable. It really helps that it’s fairly short so the premise doesn’t have to drag out too much. I recommend it for connoisseurs of fine food, fine wine, and fine swinging.

Score: 7.25 Swinging Nazis (out of 10)