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EATING RAOUL review - Day 3 of the Cannibal Film Festival
Now it’s the third day of the Cannibal Film Festival
and Tim has been out advocating Cannibal Rights on
local radio and television and ya know... Sure
enough in a populace as large as Austin and it’s
surrounding cities... you’re going to find some
belligerent types that... well... that just don’t
understand.
I arrived at the Drafthouse only to find to my horror...
Protesters. Picketers. Folks trying to convince Tim
to no longer serve human flesh.
This one asshole had his bible out and began quoting
chapter and verse at me. What an asshole. I told him
that Jesus told us to eat of his flesh and drink of his
blood.
And I swear... the man just about lost it. Began
backpedaling and then said, “That was of Jesus not of
your fellow man.”
Amateur. I retorted with, “Yes, but don’t you believe
that Jesus resides in all men?”
It was as if I said, “Rumplestiltskin.”
That Dietist bastard started screaming at me and
waving his arms all around like some sort of
bent-eared rabid gorilla. His fellow ‘sheep’ stood
around holding there dippy little signs that read,
“EATING PEOPLE IS BAD” and “DON’T BE A
MEAL.”
Upon seeing his silverback humbled, this one
particularly dim looking backwoods dope started
screaming out at the top of his lungs...
“MURDERER!!!!”
Man... whatever. SO I just headed on in. Later on,
Tim called the cannibal friendly cops to run the holy
cyst off the sidewalk and the Alamo withstood
another assault of significantly less than 13 days and
nights.
Once inside the various cannibal attendees sat around
worried. Scared. Shaken by the bastards out front,
but Tim calmed everyone down with little finger
sandwiches. With a bit of meat in their stomachs,
they were feeling much better.
Can’t believe there are creeps bold enough to actually
protest our lawful Dietary Conference and Film Fest.
It’s not like Tim didn’t get the proper permits to serve
human flesh. He’s been buying the bodies of the
executed criminals of Texas for months to stock up
for this fest. I mean... the whole process of cleansing
the meat of the lethal injection stuff.... Time
consuming work, but the last thing Tim wants to do is
serve tainted meat. But... enough... on to Bartel....
Ahhhhhh.... Paul Bartel. One of the grand masters of
the absurdly cool.
You most likely would instantly recognize Bartel as...
“That guy... ummm.. what’s his name... oh shit... he’s
been in a lot of shit. Uh. uh. He was in GREMLINS
2... and um... You know.. Um he was in um THE
USUAL SUSPECTS... Fuck... what’s his name?”
But to film geeks the world over, Bartel goes hand in
hand with John Waters as the purveyor of the strange
and unusual.
And... Bartel has always been my fave. Be it
EATING RAOUL or DEATH RACE 2000 or
CANNONBALL or SCENES FROM THE CLASS
STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS, Bartel’s biting
satire and witty humor is... well... beautiful.
Now a warning for parents out there.... This movie
and the other Bartel gems, can and will provoke your
children to think and be intelligent beings capable of
handling any of life’s curveballs... be they cadavers
off their bumpers or sexual fetishists ground for dog
food. In short, Bartel and his films will create strange
and unusual children... Just like you. He’s a beautiful
parental tool, to be used right after your child has
finished all his/her Dr Seuss books.
Oh sure, there is nudity and violence, but you know...
at some point, especially early given the world we
live in, you’re going to have to introduce sex and
violence to your kid... and Bartel allows this to be
done to a brilliant level of success.
Now for the film. EATING RAOUL, while sounding
like a wonderfully titled Cannibal film isn’t really
concerned with cannibalism to a large degree. In fact
most of the film is about wine values, house
downpayments and the mating habits of the sexually
perverse. Of course all of this can only add up to
cannibalism.
And in the history of cannibalism it really does
clearly put forth how we modern adjusted cannibals
in society come to be.
You see, the film tells the story of the Blands. Paul
and Mary Bland, played to the hilt by Bartel himself
and the fantastic and divine Mary Woronov. They
are two... ahem... intellectuals that have achieved a
level of understanding that has taken them above such
primal urgings as intercourse and parties. They are
upwardly mobile and on the go.
Desperate to open a country restaurant... unwilling to
part with a nearly priceless wine collection (they’re
cultured to a fault) and unfortunately do not have the
best of jobs.
To buy their dream business/home, they must raise a
large sum of money in a very quick manner.
I tell you, their plan is brilliant and unfortunately if
you tried it and got caught I don’t believe they’d let
you off for claiming it was an ‘homage’ to Bartel’s
genius.
But they are in no way cannibals. Incident leads to
incident and ultimately they must eat Chakotay. And
ya know... it just kinda happens that way.
They didn’t set out to cook him, but... when it comes
time to dinner... one must simply do what one must.
Personally I’d love a follow up film, set years and
years later at that restaurant of theirs with the same
characters... minus Raoul of course.
Black humor. Gallows’s humor. Deep dark satire.
Funny as hell. And most importantly they
acknowledge cannibalism for what it really is....
Just another meal.
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I come to this site because I like to read about scripts, movies in production, test screenings, and, God help me, stuff about Harry's private life. The non-fiction stuff is pretty interesting.
But when Harry (or many of the other contributors) goes off into a little fantasy world, it all becomes pretty weak. Isn't the world of film interesting enough without having to play dressup as a cannibal or a cyborg or an evil genius? -
I cannot believe myself sometimes!! And I actually thought Day 1 was the work of a hacker.... :-)
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Ya know, As Chakotay, Robert Beltran must be waiting for someone to try to munch on him. First off, he becomes cuisine in Eating Raoul, then in the 80's Sci-Fi Classic Night of the Comet, Zombies, even kid zombies, are looking for a bit of Beltran on the half shell. It makes me wonder when Voyager is gonna have someone trying to take a bite outta the first officer......
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I took great pleasure in reading about how you handled the religious whackos, Harry! Always quote their own religion against them, I say. Those people have even more time than AICN enthusiasts like me. What kills me is that they seem to hold all these opinions on movies (and concerts) that they haven't even SEEN yet. Talk about close-minded. And for some reason they all seem to be preoccupied with sex. Hmpf.
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You actually eat human flesh? Or was that a big joke?
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you sounded so sad that there wasn't a sequel to eating raoul that i had to put the small child meatloaf back in the tupperware and post this li'l bit of triv'. even though it'll probably just get a few "yeah, i know" replies...
the blands make a special guest appearance at the start of "chopping mall"!!! for no apparent reason... they talk about their restaurant and whether they should get one of the killbots to deal with problem customers. *guffaw guffaw*
anyhoo... great site. you rule, etc etc.
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This is the first time I actually talk back to one of your column/review. I'm a French Canadian form the Montreal area, so excuse my English grammar... I know it sucks. I just couldn't resist to all those cannibal film reviews without sharing with you guys the fond memories I have of a movie I saw about 15 years ago (I was about 14 years old back then). I went to see Evil Dead on a sunny sunday afternoon, and the movie was part of a double bill, the other movie being an obscure italian gory flick called "Anthropophagus", directed by an also obscure Joe d'Amato... It's been a long time ago, but as I am able to recall this precise afternoon, I remember being as scared shit by this unknown cannibal flick than Evil Dead itself. What a great piece of slasher / cannibal / gore movie it was. I have to see it again to be sure it is still as good as it was back then. I heard that there is a censored US version of this "Anthropophagus" movie around, but avoid it. You won't get to see the "famous" scene where the cannibal hero rips the foetus out of a pregnant woman and eat it before killing the girl. This was gross back time, but sounds gross to me right now too...
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Years and years ago (back when the Earth was coolin') about a year after Eating Raoul was released, I had heard somewhere that Bartel and Mary Woronov (his wife) were planning on making a sequel. I had nothing to do with the first movie, apparently - just another story with the same characters. I even remember the rather clever title: "Bland Ambition". Can anybody confirm this?
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