Paul Bartel's ultra-low budgeted quickie is still one of the best black comedies ever made, even though I found it less funny than when I first saw it, approximately ten years ago now. Then again, it was my very first "politically incorrect" comedy and I've seen many others since… This is a very charming film and the reasons why it works so well especially are the overly eccentric characters and the straight-faced acting performances of the talented B-cast. Writer/director Bartel and his favorite B-movie muse Mary Woronov star as an uptight and exaggeratedly square couple, the Blands, who're social outcasts in the wild L.A. region. Paul and Mary dream of opening their own little restaurant in the countryside but they have trouble financing it, while so many "swingers" waste their money on parties and bizarre sexual fetishes. After a first – and accidental – homicide, Paul and Mary find out that they could make easy money by luring more perverts to their apartment and kill them. The situation gets more complicated when Latino-crook Raoul discovers what the couple is doing. There aren't any special effects or gore and the set pieces aren't at all spectacular…and yet this little gem is entertaining from start to finish! Especially the first half (when you make acquaintance with the bizarre Blands) is terrific, with brilliant dialogues and offensive – yet very clever – black humor. It's obvious that Paul Bartel was an acolyte of the all-mighty Roger Corman, since he manages to deliver a fun movie without a large budget being required. The gags are simple - often not more than the sound of a frying pan hitting a human head – but it works and the atmosphere is so tongue-in-cheek that you can't but love what you see. I do wish that the film had been a little longer, especially since the ending comes so abrupt! "Eating Raoul" also contains many interesting trivia aspects, like for example the name of the co-writer, Richard Blackburn. Especially when you're familiar with Blackburn's other (and only) film "Lemora: a Child's tale of the Supernatural", this screenplay is a giant change in style. The supportive cast is marvelous as well, with the dazzling Susan Staiger as "Doris the Dominatrix" and Ed Begley Jr. as a pot-smoking hippie! Good fun!

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.

Meet the Blands, the aptly named middle-aged square couple. He's a wine expert, she's a nurse, and they need money to finance their dream restaurant. Trouble is, they're barely making ends meet. What's worse, the apartment complex they live in is infested with swingers, back when swingers were as commonplace as yuppies are now. Mary and Paul find the answer to their problems when one of the swingers tries to put the moves on Mary in their apartment. Paul whacks him with a frying pan, killing him, and they discover the fella's carrying a lot of cash. Bingo! Light over heads! What makes this goofy premise work is the absolutely hilarious, dead-on, deadpan performances of Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as the Blands. They don't give what you'd call comedic performances, but what they say and what they do seems funny, as they are a duo of decorum surrounded by a storm of decadence. Their performances, combined with a witty and biting (pardon the pun) script, make this an absolute delight, a must for lovers of off-beat movies.