2,000 Maniacs Eat Raoul

Archive: Watching

Somewhere I read that Herschell Gordon Lewis is one of John Waters favorite directors.

I'd've never thought to suggest Somewhere I read that Herschell Gordon Lewis is one of John Waters favorite directors.

I'd've never thought to suggest 2,000 Thousand Maniacs to Charles. But it was on the tape before Eating Raoul so we watched it.

Born and raised in the South, I've never identified with it.to Charles. But it was on the tape before Eating Raoul so we watched it.

Born and raised in the South, I've never identified with it. The faux-gentility of Savannah was a conspicuous fraction of my early mindset. But I was never proud of being Southern, never liked rednecks, and never felt putout by the War Between the States (the civil war to the rest of you).

But when the ghosts of Southern civil war victims arrive for their centenary to murder Yankees I always have a good time. Little kids swinging tiny hangman?’s nooses could be a part of today?’s anti-Osama orgies. Charles flinched at my favorite part where a Yankee is rolled down a hill in a barrel full of nails.

Lewis, who was tired of his picayune income as a professor of English at a Alabama college, invented the gore movie. 2,000 Thousand Maniacs was his second gore film and thus the second to ever show severed limbs and bloody stumps. Pretty tepid by the standards of the third millennium after Christ but a must of an Usian who wants to investigate his cultural heritage. HGL was proud of his blood. He made it out of Kayro syrup but it looks like purple goo after decades of big-time bloody movies that haven?’t a fraction of his cheap, quirky charm.

Charles liked 2,000 Thousand Maniacs but he delighted in Paul Bartel Eating Raoul.

Bartel who rarely acted in movies is always funny in his haughty, queenish way. And the movie is one of the few decent chances to see enough of Mary Woronov. I?’ve always found Woronov sexy without ever being sexually attracted to her. If she were a guy, in or out of drag, I?’d find her irresistible

I?’m no good at summarizing. And without the right knack summaries don?’t capture the individual flavor, the quiddity, if you will, of a movie. I?’ll just steal from Allmovie:

Eating Raoul was celebrated at the time of its release as the perfect marriage between mainstream moviemaking and the so-called "underground" cinema. Cult-film icons Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel (both of whom directed) play a married couple who decide to cash in on the sexual perversions of others. Posing as a hooker, Woronov lures the "johns" in and indulges their every kinky whim, whereupon Bartel kills the unwary client, steals the valuables, and sells the corpse for dog food.

A hoot and a genuine delight for people who, like myself, don?’t watch Spielberg or Lucas movies. Much less anything starring Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford or who the fuck else is grist for the contemporary mass culture mill. (Admittedly I?’ll have to take all that back when I say something about romantic comedy but it was fun to type.)