What's Eating Him?

I don't know why we decided to re-watch Eating Raoul (1982). But it's always good to spend some time with Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov. 

Paul and Mary Bland are ordinary folk living in an LA apartment filled with her mother's collection of fabulous fifties furniture. He works in a low-budget liquor store, but wants to be a sommelier. She's a nurse, but wants to cook. When they have the money, they plan to open a nice restaurant in the country. In the meantime they have to deal with all the swingers in the apartment building. One of them barges in and starts mauling Mary, so Paul hits him over the head with a frying pan, killing him. So they take his money and dump him down the trash chute.

To get more of these rich perverts, Mary starts advertising as a dominatrix. Because she can't kill someone in cold blood, she has to actually work the scenario until the perv gets aggressive - then they kill him. It's a living.

Raoul (Robert Beltran) enters the picture as a locksmith they hire to upgrade their security - they don't even notice that he seems to be casing the place. When he comes back late at night to rob them, he finds Paul disposing of another body. Neither one can go to the police, so they make a deal. Raoul will dispose of the bodies (to a dog food factory) and split the money he gets with the Blands. 

Everything seems to be going fine, until Raoul makes one mistake: He falls in love with Mary. As a hot-blooded Latin, it's only to be expected. If you want a hint on how this works out, see the title.

So this isn't exactly hilarious, but it is good campy fun. Just seeing Mary Woronov as a dominatrux makes it all worthwhile.