Sam Panico Paul and Mary play The Blands, a wine dealer and nurse who dream of a better life. They're prudes who only believe in hugging and kissing, saving their passion for food and drink. They're also given to quick anger, which leads to Paul being fired from his job and those dreams fading. Throw in the fact that they live in a building full of swingers and things start to look bleak for the Blanks.After one of those swingers breaks in, Paul kills him with a frying pan and they throw him into the trash compactor. One day later, they do the very same thing and realize that just by killing people and getting their wallets, all their dreams may come true. After all, the bank only tried to get into Mary's pants (as everyone but Paul tries to do).After meeting with suburban dominatrix Doris, the Blanks make an ad. Believe it or not, the film's budget was so small, they couldn't afford to make a fake ad. So they ran a real ad in L.A. Weekly, but it only got one answer.Soon, they meet Raoul (Robert Beltran, Night of the Comet and TV's Star Trek Voyager), a locksmith con artist who breaks into their house the night after installing new locks. While in their apartment, he falls over a dead Nazi that Paul had just killed and cleaned up. He agrees to keep their secret and sell the bodies for more cash. Sure, he's selling those bodies to a dog food company, but he's also stealing their cars and selling them.The very next day, while Paul is buying groceries and a new frying pan (as Mary doesn't want to kill and cook with the same pan), a hippie client (Ed Begely Jr.) arrives late and tries to rape Mary. Luckily, Raoul arrives and kills the man with his belt. Soon, he and Mary are smoking the man's weed and making love. Raoul soon falls for Mary, despite her continually saying that it's all wrong and needing marijuana to relax. The lusty locksmith tries to kill Paul with his car (after a sequence where John Paragon plays a sex shop salesman. Paragon is better known as Jambi the Genie and the voice of Pterri the Pterodactyl on Pee Wee's Playhouse, as well as collaborating with Cassandra Peterson on her many Elvira projects), which leads to our hero working with Doris the Dominatrix to start a gaslighting campaign against Raoul, climaxing with prescribing him saltpeter pills that keep him from getting hard.After a giant swinger party, Paul ends up killing tons of rich swingers, taking their cars and money, finally able to achieve the dreams he shares with his wife. This leads to a drunken Raoul breaking back into the Bland house, disclosing the affair and telling Paul that he is taking Mary away. Of course, he has to kill Paul first, so he asks Mary to bring him the frying pan.Instead, Mary shows her true colors and love for Paul, killing Raoul. But wait! The real estate agent is on his way and there's no time to make him dinner! Of course, there's always...Raoul.The film ends with our cute little couple standing in front of their new restaurant, Paul and Mary's Country Kitchen, with the caption, "Bon Appétit."Bartel shot this film on odds and ends of stock in between projects. Some of the longer runs of stock given to the production had been rejected by others because their cases had mold grown on the cans that house the film. Often, the crew would have no idea if the film they were shooting was even usable. That said, this movie has a quick, bouncy, punk rock energy that seems improvised throughout.

sharky_55 The world of Eating Raoul is a depraved, prude's nightmare. Sex is on everyone's minds; you can't buy a carton of milk without contracting something, much less apply for a business loan (the manager's hand, after having his master's initial advances denied, seems to dive into muscle memory, groping the air and just about holding back from attacking the secretary). Director Paul Bartel, a Roger Corman alumni who made a string of low budget flicks in the 70s and 80s, utilises his set design well. It's kitsch overload, dirty white walls, mustard yellow carpet, pastel paintings that don't match - no wonder the inmates seem to be bouncing off the walls. Freak after freak is invited into Bland's household, with minimal decor and props hung up to cater to their sexual tastes. The mise-en-scene finds the right note inbetween seediness and tackiness. We grimace initially, and then can't help but chuckle at the cheapness of the whole charade, and the nonchalance of the Blands at these deviants invading their home: "He's not gonna show. We've thrown away 70 dollars on this light show." He does show a little later, muttering about Nam and hippy rebirths as if they were the natural progression of a middle aged man. Make love, not war. The Blands sleep in twin beds (have they ever had sex? Do they even hug?) and air kiss right before tucking in, although in this society they're relatively normal. They fall into their murderous routine by pure accident, as if it was an extended screwball bit. Mr Bland is the loser flogging vintage wines over the local bottle shop counter, and Mrs Bland is a nurse, although not the sexy kind, not that it deters his horndog patients. When they stumble into one frying pan murder, it cascades into another, and then another. Watch them act if they are good at this, or even enjoy it - they don't know how. It's cute to see Paul whisper to Mary to insult their client over the phone, and to watch them giggle like schoolchildren. They're too bland for this. Mary can't even summon the gall to spank a naughty client, even when he's overturned the entire tea table. She just scurries to clean the mess up. And look at what Paul wears to visit the sex shop, picking up a few odds and ends to attract more clients. It's a comedy of manners and learned behaviour, struggling to unravel after a decade of monotonous monogamy. That balance is upset when Raoul enters the business, a thief posing as a locksmith (it couldn't have been more obvious if he was a plummer - pick and choose your metaphors). A walking talking cliche, he embodies everything about those hot blooded Latinos that porn producers think ladies pine for. Here's where my suspension of disbelief fails a little; would Mary, the docile housewife, really go for this stud? It's all a bit suspect of a storytelling device designed to drive a wedge between the couple, who seem to be truly inseparable (shackled - no, handcuffed together). The script cheats a tad to get to that final gag, which is littered with delightful nods to everything the Blands have gone through. Eating Raoul indeed. It doesn't have the zany energy of a proper screwball, but Bartel finds something unique here, a sharp little black comedy about a sex-crazed world and the odd couple who wade through all the filth and persevere. They play it straight through and through - there's never even a hint of Cary Grant's manic stare from Arsenic and Old Lace to give it all away. It's a nicely seared veal, with just a touch of murder on the side.

ksf-2 Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov star as a married couple, in this caper to raise money. They want to make enough dough to open their own restaurant. Even if what they have to do for the money is a little illegal. Like a John Waters film, the script is goofy, and no-one TRIES to be funny, they all just be themselves, and its hilarious. Here, we have the bonus of seeing some big-time stars in their early roles -- Robert Beltran, so famous from Star Trek, is Raoul, the Mexican wheeler dealer in his very second role. Some great "cameos" (BEFORE they were stars...) Ed Begley(swinger), Edie McClurg(swinger), and of course Buck Henry(swinger AND banker). Not to mention John Landis. A pretty funny scene at the adult bookstore when Paul goes to buy "supplies". Also some funny stuff going on at the swinger's party about an hour in. "Howard", one of the guests really WAS an LA DJ, which explains why he says what he says.... it's all pretty funny. nothing too complicated. all neatly wrapped up at the end. Written and directed by Paul Bartel. (who, incidentally also wrote and directed "Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", which ALSO starred Robert Beltran... )

lasttimeisaw Paul Bartel's cult murder comedy sets in the Tinseltown, husband-and wife Paul and Mary Bland (Woronov and Bartel) are decent citizens, the former is a rather ordinary-looking oenophile and wine dealer, the latter is a nurse with a lanky and sultry figure, quite an odd pair at first glance, their dream is to open a countryside restaurant, but what they encounter is nothing but epidemic decadence and underhanded chicanery, Paul is swindled out of his valuable wine collection, and Mary is met with flagrant sexual harassment when she tries to secure a loan from the bank. Moreover, in the building where they live, has been encroached by swingers' orgy parties, even in their own apartment, Mary is at her peril of being raped from drunken and horny swingers.Enough is enough! After Paul knocks off a swinger who is forcing himself on Mary with a frying pan, a revelation occurs! They finds out it is a lucrative way to get back at the corrupt world and consummate their dream. After counselling Doris the Dominatrix (Saiger), a regular practitioner in the kinky business, they decide to lure rich pervert clients to their place through newspaper advertisement, on the promise of executing whatever perversion they want, then kill them once at a time, and take their money (cash only)!The film sticks to its absolute sterility of gore and violence, all the killings are neatly conducted with a " magic" bop of the span, and refuses to compound the killing spree with the involvement of police or other parties under such contexts. Since soon Raoul (Beltran), a young wetback burglar, finds out their deal and blackmails to partake in the business by helping them dispose the bodies (thanks God, it is not sent directly to KFC or McDonald), but on the sly, he is a just another horn- dog involuntarily under Mary's spell. Trysts will surface, but there is no need of slut-shaming, who can resist the purified hallucination from Thai sticks? After a droll episode in a swinger party, there will be only one man standing, and the title tells who is that man and what happens to that wily but despicable interloper (fry-panned).Woronov, the former Warhol's Factory Girl, a towering figure with all seriousness, also reluctantly but aptly exhibits her unbridled sexual magnetism thanks to a chain of custom-made costumes. And Bartel, snugly ensconces himself in Paul's soft-spoken, self-effacing, nondescript persona, who is miraculously blessed with a gorgeous and reliable wife, and lives up to their ultimate dream. The film is an artful lampoon of the insalubrious culture of instant gratification and amorality, people are pigs, so why not put them on the dinner table too? Cannibalism has its reasons.