Eating Raoul

I think I had a pretty sophisticated sense of humor for a twelve-year-old, but I think even the most worldly of pre-teens would have a problem with the movie Eating Raoul.

So why would I (or my parents, more specifically) decide to go see it? The fact that Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov were its stars and creators, and were both in Rock n Roll High School, which I loved, was probably the biggest contributing factor. So, we went to go see it at the Bridge theater at the beginning of November.

Alas, their presence didn't help me like the movie, which is kind of a like an even weirder version of Sweeney Todd: Woronov and Bartel play a prudish couple who wants to open a restaurant but can't raise the money. They start to lure "swingers," (the sex variety, not the 1990's Vince Vaughn variety) to their apartment to kill them and steal their money. It gets considerably more ridiculous than that, and is filled with a lot of black humor, and low budget filmmaking.

Because it left such a bad impression on me back then, I never really bothered to watch it again as an adult. I wouldn't waste a rental on it now, but if it ever pops up on cable, I might give it one last try...