Review of Eating Raoul (1982) by Tim S — 09 Feb 2013

Eating Raoul was co-written and directed by Paul Bartel in 1982. It stars Bartel himself and Mary Woronov, as well as Robert Beltran. I gotta say that the movie is quite a hoot. It starts out strong and barrels down the track fast in terms of pace.

It's only 83 minutes long, so that should tell you how tightly scripted and edited it is. It's a black comedy about a married couple who decide to lure perverts into their apartment with promises of sexual activities, but instead murder them and keep the money they find on them.

Along the way they meet Raoul, who goes on to help them and also help himself in their dirty deeds. The film plays on absurdity and character-driven comedy most of the time which I like, but it never really finds a permanent foothold in its own brand of comedy.

I laughed a lot but I don't think most people would laugh at it as much as I did. That doesn't make it a bad movie, but maybe just a bit of a miss in that area. I liked it a lot and would watch it again and again, and now that it's readily available, I hope that more people see it.