Darcy Pulliam | 80's Movie Guide

Taglines: Meet the Blands! They're square... They're in love... And they kill people. Eating Raoul movie storyline. When a Paul enters his apartment to find Mary fighting off a swinger who has gotten into the wrong apartement (and thinks that Mary is just playing hard to get) he hits the man with a frying pan, killing him. Their dreams of running a small resturant seem to be in jeopardy until they decide to dispose of the body, keep the wallet, and to advertise for other sexually oriented visitors who are summarily killed, bagged, robbed and disposed of. This goes along quite well until one night a burglar named Raoul breaks in and cuts himself in for a piece of the action. Eating Raoul is a 1982 black comedy film about a married couple living in Hollywood who resort to killing swingers for their money. It was directed by Paul Bartel and written by Bartel and Richard Blackburn. The writers also commissioned a single-issue comic book based on the film for promotion; it was created by underground comics creator Kim Deitch. About the Story Paul and Mary Bland are a wine dealer and a nurse, respectively, who bemoan their low status in life and dream of opening a restaurant. An exceptionally prudish couple, they sleep in separate beds and disapprove of sex, except for "a little hugging and kissing". After Paul is fired from his job at a wine shop, the couple are left relatively penniless and the chances that they will ever realize their dream quickly diminish. Their plight is exacerbated by the fact that they live in an apartment building that is a regular site of swinger parties. After a drunk swinger wanders into their apartment and tries to rape Mary, Paul kills him by hitting him with a heavy frying pan. They take his money and put him in the trash compactor. Later, they kill another swinger in a similar fashion, and realize that they could make money by killing "rich perverts", and proceed to do so, getting advice on infiltrating the swinging lifestyle from one of the building's orgy regulars, Doris the Dominatrix. After finding a flier for cheap lock-installation on their car, they decide, for the safety of Paul's wine collection, to have the locks on their apartment door changed. The locksmith, Raoul, is a Latino man who moonlights as a cat burglar, robbing the homes and apartments of his clients. He breaks into the Blands' apartment the night after installing their locks, only to stumble across the corpse of the Blands' latest victim, a Nazi fetishist. Paul catches Raoul and the two strike a deal: Not only will Raoul keep the Blands' secret, he tells them that he knows a place where he can "exchange" the corpses for cash. The Blands accept, and Raoul goes to work for them (he sells the corpses to a dog food company), also secretly stealing the victims' cars and selling them. Eating Raoul (1982) Directed by: Paul Bartel Starring: Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Robert Beltran, Susan Saiger, Lynn Hobart, Richard Paul, Mark Woods, John Shearin, Darcy Pulliam Screenplay by: Paul Bartel, Richard Blackburn Production Design by: Robert Schulenberg Cinematography by: Gary Thieltges Film Editing by: Alan Toomayan Music by: Arlon Ober Distributed by: 20th Century Fox Release Date: March 24, 1982