Eating Raoul (1982) - Paul Bartel
Related: Mary Woronov - American cinema - swinging (lifestyle) - 1982 - Paul Bartel
Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov in Eating Raoul (1982)
Eating Raoul (1982) - Paul Bartel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
Eating Raoul was a 1982 film comedy about a married couple living in Hollywood who eventually take to killing people for their money. It was directed by Paul Bartel and written by Paul Bartel and Richard Blackburn. The writers also commissioned a single issue comic book based on the movie for promotion; it was created by underground comics creator, Kim Deitch.
Story
Mr. and Mrs. Bland are a wine dealer and a nurse, respectively, who grieve over their low statuses in life and dream of someday opening a restaurant.
After Mr. Bland is fired from his job at a wine shop (shortly after an unrelated in-store shooting), and Mrs. Bland narrowly escapes rape from a number of different men, they are at home together, trying to figure out how to raise money for their restaurant.
After a "swinger" (more or less along the lines of Austin Powers) wanders drunk into their apartment and tries to rape Mrs. Bland, Mr. Bland accidentally kills him by hitting him with a frying pan. They take his money and put him in the garbage disposal. Later on, they kill another swinger along the same lines, and realize that they could actually make money by killing "rich perverts", and proceed to do so.
Taking some times from "Doris the Dominatrix" whom Mr. Bland met at a swingers' party he didn't want to go to, they set up shop in their home and put ads in papers. After finding a flyer attached to their car for cheap lock installation, they decide, for the safety of Mr. Bland's wine collection, to have it done.
The lock installer's name is Raoul, and he drops by and has a look around the apartment, and proclaims that the Blands, even though on the fifth floor, should also have window locks. Mr. Bland protests, but Mrs. Bland suggests it for the safety of his wine collection, which Raoul overhears.
Their customer for that afternoon is a Nazi (or at least someone who likes to pretend to be a Nazi), and after killing him the Blands go to sleep. In the dark of night, Raoul sneaks in to steal the wine, and finds all the Nazi paraphernalia and the dead man. Mr. Bland is awakened and catches Raoul, but instead of killing him, Raoul makes Mr. Bland an offer: he will take away the dead bodies and give the Blands a cut. They accept.
Raoul starts taking away the bodies (and the swingers' cars, too, as Mr. Bland discovers) and sells them as meat to the Doggie King Dog Food company.
One night shortly afterwards, the Blands have a hippie customer who they decide isn't going to come. Mr. Bland leaves to buy groceries (and a new frying pan, "I'm a bit squeamish about cooking with the one we use to kill people") and Mrs. Bland is left alone in the house. The hippie arrives afterwards, and when Mrs. Bland explains that he missed his appointment, he tries to rape her. Raoul enters at that point and kills the hippie. After offering some drugs to Mrs. Bland, he then has sex with her himself.
This affair goes on for a while, and Mr. Bland becomes suspicious. After Raoul tries to kill him (although he can't be sure it was Raoul) he hires Doris to pose as a number of people in attempts to get rid of Raoul by persuasion.
The final confrontation is when Raoul arrives in the Blands' apartment with a gun and prepares to kill Mr. Bland. Mrs. Bland kills Raoul with the frying pan. This is shortly before they are to have dinner with a man who is trying to sell them a house in the country for them to use as a restaurant. With no food in the house and very little time, they do, in fact, end up eating Raoul. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_Raoul [Mar 2005]
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