Eating Raoul (1982)

Comedy, Crime, Films, Reviews,

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There’s a certain subset of cinephile culture that has deemed Eating Raoul a classic — heck, it even earned a spot in the Criterion Collection. And I don’t disagree with them. But despite the love from movie diehards, the horror comedy has remained a woefully underappreciated genre gem. To be sure, Eating Raoul skews further in the direction of comedy than horror (a fine counterpart to the twisted terrors of Parents, which you’ll find below), and the movie is light on gore, but it’s a pitch-perfect entry in the horror comedy lineage that hinges on the tropes of terror to land the punchline.

The film centers on a prudish, condescending married couple, appropriately named The Blands (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov), who decide to take matters into their own hands when their lifestyle is cramped by the swingers and partygoers flooding their complex. When one of the unseemly bunch gets too aggressive with the lady of the house, the Blands get to murdering and it sets off an unhinged chain of events that culminates in a human feast.

Eating Raoul is hilarious, but it plays most of the humor subtly, and under Bartel’s direction, the violence gets the same treatment. In fact, most of the film plays out in deadpan, demanding the audience keep up with the visual gags and slyly delivered quips, with violence doled out in quick, unblinking spurts. A slick satire with plenty to say about capitalism and the comforts of suburbia, Eating Raoul will tickle your funny bone… just before it carves your arm and sells it for dog meat.