"Eat And Run" seems like a somewhat larger budgeted movie from the looks of it, with that glossy New World Pictures logo coming on the screen. At least it seems fancier to me. This movie's pretty gross but it's actually adorably funny in a likable cornball way. It's one of the many New York set films of the 1980s that emphasizes it's Italian community, although it's probably the only one that focuses on the appetizing nature of its people as food versus the food that they create. haha. They generically reference Carvel ice cream cakes which is painfully 80s NY, but surprisingly not Friendly's (even though, they hail from Massachusetts) which seems to be a suburban NY staple. Hell, they even referenced Friendly's in "The Sopranos" haha.
The eating (although, not much running actually) is done by shirt button spitting character actor, Pat Ryan (or sometimes R.L. Ryan). You might recognize him as the sleazy junkyard owner from "Street Trash" which he did around the same time as "Eat..". Here, he's a humanoid space alien named Murray the Creature that crash landed in New York. A nice Italian man picks him up thinking he's a hitchhiker and inadvertently talks Murray into eating him. This sets a series of murders that goofball detective, Mickey McSorely (Ron Silver) goes on a self-narrating journey to solve.
"I Ordered Fudgey The Fish But They Send Me Fuckin' Cookie Face!"
I went into this "USA Up All Night" choice of movie thinking it was a horror film, but it's more of a comedy than anything. All the "gore" is done off screen. There are a ton of gags in this, which can sometimes read as trying too hard. Sometimes they kinda bash you over the head with the schtick but it was still charming in a vaudeville kinda way. It was the last movie written by Stan Hart who was head writer of "The Carol Burnett Show" and also had written for Mad Magazine.
I could've done without the icky comedic fully-clothed sex scenes with poofy haired Judge Cheryl (Sharon Schlarth) and McSorely, haha. Some of the dialogue exchanges though were pretty funny like,
Cheryl: "Oh by way, I forgot to ask if you had Herpes?"
McSorely: "Oh god no, that's one thing I don't have"
Cheryl: "It's not so bad, it stings from time to time, but it doesn't interfere with my social life"
Murray eats tunnel-digging Agamemnon from "OZ"
I think my favorite gag was when the Zeppoles vendor fried his ring, his watch and his ID bracelet. The least would have to be the weird sex scene with McSorely (he kinda resembles an off-brand Andy Garcia) and Judge Cheryl but she's sound asleep. Yuck.
This movie is not quite at "Eating Raoul" caliber as far as comedies involving eating people goes, but it's worth a look. These movies were surprisingly never paired up on "USA Up All Night".
"Eat And Run" apparently aired 4 times (!!) on "USA Up All Night":
April 8th 1989 Satan's Cheerleaders/Eat and Run
September 1 1989 Eat and Run/The Kentucky Fried Movie
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