EATING RAOUL (1982)

Director: Paul Bartel

Writers: Paul Bartel, Richard Blackburn

Producer: Anne Kimmel

Cast: Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, Susan Saiger, Garry Goodrow, Dan Barrows, Ed Begley, Jr., John Shearin, Buck Henry, John Paragon, Don Steele, Edie McClurg, Richard Blackburn, Darcy Pulliam, Ralph Brannan, Hamilton Camp, Billy Curtis, Allan Rich, Anna Mathias, Richard Paul

Paul and Mary Bland (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov) are a financially strapped, asexual, married couple living in a Los Angeles, California apartment building that is crawling with swingers. When Paul kills one of the sex-crazed partiers (Garry Goodrow) trying to assault Mary, the Blands find a lot of money on the body that they could use toward a down payment on the country kitchen restaurant that they aspire to open. It occurs to them that killing and robbing perverts they think no one will miss could quickly finance their business startup. The Blands place sex fetish performance ads in a local paper to lure more victims to their apartment.

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Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov both had indie and underground film experience: In the 1960s, Bartel had directed his own experimental short films while Woronov appeared in famous multi-media artist Andy Warhol’s film projects. By the early ’70s, both Bartel and Woronov were working in low-budget feature films. They first worked together in the Bartel-directed Roger Corman production Death Race 2000 (1975). They would continue to collaborate in numerous films, both often playing roles together as an odd couple. Bartel decided that he and Woronov could play a couple that would be the main protagonists of a film. With that goal in mind, Bartel conceived the dark comedy Eating Raoul and gave the cult film audience the ultimate Bartel-Woronov movie.

As Paul and Mary Bland, Bartel and Woronov seem like the most reasonable people in a crass, hedonistic world. They have a lifestyle modeled after the squeaky-clean façade of 1950s media. In their apartment full of retro furniture and bric-a-brac, they sleep fully clothed in separate twin beds and are appalled by the rampant sexuality of the other tenants in their apartment building. Both at home and at work, the Blands are constantly confronted with lowbrow and debauched people.

While they are offended by this world full of crude horndogs, the Blands are just as amoral in their entrepreneurial pursuit. They feel justified killing because decent people like them are struggling, while those no-good swingers always seem to have plenty of money. Their only concern about the murders they commit is finding enough money in two weeks to make a bid on the property they want to buy for their restaurant.

The humor found in the behavior of the Blands is never at the expense of their staid character. They never relish their villainy or truly engage in the spirit of the sexual come-ons that setup their victims. Watching Mary Bland woodenly recite lines as she role plays contrasts hilariously with the rampant antics of her horny johns. Since the Bland couple agreed that Mary would never have to have sex with her clients before her fellow aspiring restauranteur Paul brains them with a frying pan, this is a case of the end justifies the means for the Blands; trickle-down economics be damned.

Soon after the Blands have new locks installed in their apartment, the shady locksmith, Raoul, breaks in at night and discovers the body of one of their recent victims. Rather than report this crime to the police, Raoul partners with the Blands. Raoul figures out more ways to profit from the Blands’ victims than just emptying their wallets.

Robert Beltran is best known for his role as Commander Chakotay on the television series Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001). As Raoul, he is the handsome and pushy presence that manages to prompt some promiscuity out of the prudish Mary Bland. This adds complications to the Blands’ scheme and relationship.

There are many other small parts played to hilarious, tasteless perfection. Garry Goodrow, John Shearin, Dan Barrows, Ed Begley, Jr., and Don Steele are awesomely obnoxious as swingers. John Paragon is one of my favorite characters as the loudmouth sex shop cashier who always speaks in a raised voice about the sexual aids the embarrassed Paul Bland must purchase for his new, moneymaking enterprise. Paragon also played “Breather,” the sweaty, bad joke-telling creep who frequently made phone calls to Cassandra Peterson’s Elvira during her Elvira’s Movie Macabre (1985–2011) horror-movie-hosting television show. Paragon would collaborate as a writer with Peterson for her Elvira feature films Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) and Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001).

The comedic edge in Eating Raoul is maintained by not lapsing into the physically surreal. All the humor is derived from the amoral behavior and/or the bad taste excesses of nearly all the characters. The character friction is between the couple with standards and a society that seems to have none. This still allows the film, as light as it is, to satirize the do-it-if-it-feels-good hangover of the sexual revolution, while also demonstrating that sexually uptight people can be even more amoral in their entrepreneurial ambitions.

Eating Raoul was a modest success and critically well received. Bartel and Woronov reprised their Bland characters for a cameo in the 1986 techno-horror film Chopping Mall. In 1989, a sequel to Eating Raoul, called Bland Ambition, was in the works by Bartel and his Eating Raoul co-writer, Richard Blackburn. Unfortunately, the production’s funding was dropped just before filming could begin. That’s a damned shame. I don’t know if Eating Raoul’s comedic special sauce could be reformulated for a sequel, but I was salivating to be served another course à la Bland.

PIRANHA (1978)

Director: Joe Dante

Writers: John Sayles, Richard Robinson

Producer: Jon Davison

Cast: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Bartel, Belinda Balaski, Melody Thomas Scott, Shannon Collins, Barbara Steele, Dick Miller, Keenan Wynn, Bruce Gordon, Barry Brown, Shawn Nelson, Richard Deacon, Janie Squire, Roger Richman, John Sayles (uncredited), Guich Koock, Bill Smillie, Eric Henshaw, Jack Pauleson, Virginia Dunnam, Diamond Farnsworth, Robyn Ray, Robert Vinson, Mike Sullivan, Bruce Paul Barbour, Jack Cardwell (Brandy the dog)

Skip tracer Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is sent to Texas to find a young couple. Her search leads her to a remote area where she meets an unemployed, hard-drinking recluse named Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman). She convinces him to be her guide and together they explore the nearby, seemingly abandoned US Army facility where a pool and lab were kept to use for bioweapon research. Finding some clothing and hiking gear that belonged to the missing couple, Maggie drains the pool to see if their bodies are at the bottom. Unfortunately, this has released a school of voracious mutant piranha into the local river that head downstream towards a summer camp and the newly opened Lost River water park.

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Piranha is the best of all the nature-attacks flicks that followed in the bloody wake of Jaws (1975). Although it is another man-eating fish horror film, it is hardly just a rip-off. It deals with other themes and uses a sci-fi angle to create its menace. This makes the film fresh while still delivering more of the summertime, waterlogged terror its audience expected.

John Sayles’ and Richard Robinson’s script goes a long way to distinguish this film from its Jaws inspiration. It has a lot of humor that never goes so far as to diminish the horror or our involvement in the situations and the main characters. The story raises concerns about the direction that military research can still go in peacetime. As one character states: There will always be wars. There also will always be cover-ups and greed that can jeopardize public safety.

After co-directing Hollywood Boulevard (1976), which included horror elements, Joe Dante’s first solo directed film Piranha established him as someone who knows how to deliver multi-faceted exploitation that should satisfy any fright flick fan. The film has nice images, suspenseful build-ups to the bloody climaxes, race-against-time pacing, and good performances from its simply drawn characters.

Heading up the cast are Heather Menzies and Bradford Dillman. As our skip tracer heroine Maggie McKeown, Menzies is the impulsive and confident counterpoint to Dillman’s surly recluse Paul Grogan. Dillman often played unlikable characters, so it is fun to see him here eventually shift into hero mode. They make an appealing pair of protagonists because they are not presented as infallible icons ready to kick ass and save the day. They have their faults and quirks that make them interesting and that’s why we are rooting for them. Their initial friction with each other and then their teamwork provides humor that enlivens their ongoing efforts to stop the piranha threat.

Kevin McCarthy, as the hermit scientist Dr. Robert Hoak, provides another hysterical warning about a sci-fi menace as he did back in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). This time around, he is responsible for developing the menace that is unknowingly unleashed by our heroine Maggie McKeown. Hoak provides the necessary and interesting exposition about his research that helps to establish the film’s cynicism regarding government and the military.

That '60s Italian horror film icon Barbara Steele is a presence as unsettling as the piranha. Her character of government scientist Dr. Mengers had collaborated with Hoak on the development of the new piranha species. Unlike Hoak, she is not conflicted about the deadly consequences of the experiment getting out of control. Her assurances to the public are more about public relations than public safety.

Paul Bartel, as the priggish summer camp director Dumont, and Dick Miller, as Lost River Aquarena entrepreneur Buck Gardner, provide plenty of humor. They also contribute to the terror and tragedy as they refuse to believe the warnings of danger about the escaped piranha.

Two years before summer camps became the preferred stomping grounds for murdering maniacs, Piranha racks up a bloody body count that includes a lot of preteens among its victims. This lends an extra nasty edge to the flick that reminds us just how high the stakes are if this menace is not stopped.

Since the script, direction, and performances engage us in different ways with horror, humor, science fiction, and suspicion of authority, this movie has just enough complexity to make this escapist fun very satisfying. Piranha is a perennial summertime film favorite of mine, so in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, I invite you to take a trip down Lost River. If you like blood with your bikinis, you can’t go wrong.

DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)

Director: Paul Bartel

Writers: Robert Thom, Charles B. Griffith, adapting Ib Melchior’s original short story “The Racer”

Producer: Roger Corman

Cast: David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Woronov, Louisa Moritz, Roberta Collins, Fred Grandy, Don Steele (as The Real Don Steele), Joyce Jameson, Carle Bensen, Martin Kove, Leslie McRay, Sandy McCallum, Harriet Medin, Wendy Bartel, Bill Morey, William Shephard, Vince Trankina, Paul L. Ehrmann (as Paul Laurence), John Favorite (as Jack Favorite), John Landis, Sandy Ignon, Darla McDonnell, Roger Rook, Paul Bartel (uncredited), Lewis Teague (uncredited), Charles B. Griffith (uncredtited), Dick Miller (uncredited)

In the year 2000, the United States has become a totalitarian society. It provides the public the distraction and spectacle of the annual Transcontinental Road Race. The racers not only compete to traverse the country in the fastest time, but they also must score points for the kills they make by running over pedestrians. The current champion is Frankenstein (David Carradine). He is so named because of his many racing injuries and surgical reconstructions. In addition to the dangers he and the other drivers face in their sport, there are anti-government rebels attempting acts of sabotage against the race.

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Celebrity worship, totalitarianism, and dumbing down of the masses are present day concerns that were quite aptly addressed back in 1975 with the dystopian future portrayed in Death Race 2000. Like many Roger Corman productions, it first and foremost means to entertain; yet it still has themes to explore without preaching.

I think the film’s most pertinent point is the depiction of the manic enthusiasm of the fans for the sport and its champions. This gaudy and brutal distraction of the Transcontinental Road Race entertains and ultimately pacifies the citizens. It also cheapens the merit of human life to being worth no more than points to be scored by the racing heroes that they adore. This removes the motivation to demand that a government dedicated to “minority privilege” be responsible for the well being of all the people. The public is idiotically devoted to an entertainment they want to believe has some sort of meaning; it must if it makes them feel good, right? So long as the citizens don’t ever ask themselves what difference a winning score in a sport has to do with anyone’s quality of life, they should be happy.

The film is loosely based on an Ib Melchior short story called “The Racer.” That story also details a futuristic road racing sport that involves scoring points for running down pedestrians. It is told from the perspective of the champion racer being confronted about the morality of such real-life violence used to entertain. Death Race 2000 expands the story to include more characters and additional themes in a satirical manner. 

The wild and witty screenplay is by Robert Thom along with producer Roger Corman’s inventive and humorous writing veteran Charles B. Griffith. Director Paul Bartel has always distinguished himself both in front of and behind the camera in films of bizarre comedy. While many of the characters are laugh-out-loud funny, they all seem to be appropriate to the shallow and empty world of this future dystopia.

Having just wrapped up his popular Kung Fu television series, David Carradine stars as the racing champion called Frankenstein. While nearly every other character is a loutish caricature, Frankenstein is an intriguing enigma. In public he is always hidden behind a mask supposedly to conceal his road accident scars. His manner is stoic while most of those around him are eccentric and volatile. Whether this was a writing choice, a directing decision, or just Carradine’s acting style, I think it is this restraint in an exotic character that makes him interesting and keeps Frankenstein the hub around which the rest of the story revolves.

The other standout in the cast has to be Sylvester Stallone as the hilariously belligerent racer Machine Gun Joe Viterbo. He is both funny and despicable. Being jealous of Frankenstein’s popularity, Viterbo always has a chip on his shoulder and is ready to dole out violence to anyone. Just one year later, the struggling actor Stallone would achieve lasting stardom in Rocky (1976). 

Cult film favorite and frequent Paul Bartel co-star Mary Woronov appears as the racer Calamity Jane Kelly. Unlike the other characters in this film, she actually seems quite likable. 

Special mention must go out to Don Steele as the obnoxious race announcer Junior Bruce. His hyperbole and gung-ho puns keep stressing the superficiality of this race and this society. 

Aside from the humor, the major fun factors in this film are the attention-getting personas worked out for the racers that are complimented by the design of their vehicles. Since Frankenstein is named after a famous monster, his vehicle is called “The Monster” and is decked out like a dragon with huge fangs protruding from the front bumper. The other racers each have their own appropriately adorned cars. 

At this film’s most visceral level, it provides forbidden appeal with the depiction of sanctioned vehicular homicide. There is a sense of sick liberation in the notion that one becomes a hero for violating the rules that we are conditioned to follow as good drivers and citizens. That is the main reason that Death Race 2000 became a very successful film. 

Obviously concocted to cash-in on the futuristic blood sport vibe of the soon-to-be-released Rollerball (1975), Death Race 2000 approaches its subject in a much more freewheeling and humorous manner, yet it is just as thought provoking. Being an exploitation film that has themes worth pondering along with its action and laughs meant that Death Race 2000 was bound for cult status.