Customer Reviews

Eaten Alive

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Just a reminder to anyone looking to buy this special edition dvd of Eaten Alive: Originally to be released on september 26th (like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Ultimate Edition),Dark Sky Films has decided to postpone the release. Reason: they have apparently discovered a pristine print of the film. So, they want to create an improved transfer for the dvd. Also, it will give them time to record an audio commentary with Tobe Hooper. A new street date should be announced shortly.

EATEN ALIVE is Tobe Hooper's 2nd movie to date, made 3 years after his previous work: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

DETAILS.

Just like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, EATEN ALIVE is yet another movie based (very loosely) on a true story. I heard it was inspired by a bar owner named Joe Ball, who kept a pool of alligators in his bar, and it was rumored that he often fed his patrons to these gators. When the police came to question him, Ball killed himself.

PLOT.

Tobe Hooper VERY loosely bases this incident in EATEN ALIVE. The story is about a deranged, nerdy person named Judd who runs a motel called Starlight in the middle of a swamp. When guests check into his motel, he murders them with a sythe and feeds their bodies to his ferocious, pet crocodile.

Neville Brand (Judd) delivers an insane performance, he's crazier than the Old Man (from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE), but not quite as frightening and disturbing as Leather-Face. Marylin Burns even makes an appearance in here, too (she was the heroine, Sally Hardesty; also from TCM). Also, be on the lookout for Robert Englund as Buck (...) (he would later play Freddy Krueger in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET). The crocodile effects could've used a little work though, the croc looks about as real as Barney the dinosaur.

This is considered to be director Tobe Hooper's "Lost" film. This could be because "Eaten Alive" was released under so many alternate titles...or it could be as simple as this film just isn't that great. Tobe Hooper seems to be with this film trying to create the same tension he did with his stunning Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but fails. Eaten Alive is actually very similar to TCM in many ways. Stray vistors vistit a remote hotel (not a farm house)only to be slayed by a psycho (not Leatherface) with a scyth (not a chainsaw) and then fed to his pet croc (not served up for supper). Neville Brand does a good job portraying the psychotic hotel owner, but his character does not seem to come off near as scary or relentless as the legendary Leatherface. I can see way Tobe Hooper decided to make this film. TCM was such a hit that he probably felt it to be safer to try to copy his success rather than try something different. Sadly this film disappeared from the box office never to be heard from again until the Elite DVD release. The DVD presention is very good, considering how rare this film is. It does have some scratches and color disortions, but its acceptable since the original negative probably hasn't been stored in the best of conditions over the years (it was probably stored in Tobe's basment until one day he decided to blow the dust off of it). This film is still a good buy for the curious horror fans out there.

On the up side about the film, I like how Tobe Hooper tried to "liven" up the film by using some unique lighting effects. These lighting effects are very similar to Dario Argento's Suspiria with the bright red and blues. Many consider Dario Argento to have started that whole "unique" lighting effect stuff, but Tobe Hooper actually beat him to the punch by two years! Maybe Eaten Alive was released before "artsy" horror films became popular.

Tobe Hooper's next film after the ubersuccess "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a mess of half realized ideas and a director who must have felt the pressure to top himself.

Neville Brand is Judd, who runs the Starlight Hotel on the outskirts of a small Texas town. Libby (Crystin Sinclaire), a novice hooker, runs away from Miss Hattie's (Carolyn Jones, in some awful pancake makeup) and takes refuge at the creepy hotel. She arrives at night, Judd figures out she was one of Miss Hattie's girls, and throws her in the swamp. The swamp out back of the hotel contains a giant crocodile, which eats almost everything that comes its way.

The film then falls into a pattern that constantly repeats itself. More patrons come to the hotel, Judd picks this night to go nuts, and the crocodile out back gets to eat more than his share. Roy (William Finley) and his family arrive, Libby's dad (Mel Ferrer) and her sister arrive, Buck (Robert Englund) arrives, the sheriff arrives, my impatience arrives, etc.

While the crocodile attacks are very good (Hooper wisely keeps the shots dark), and the gore effects are okay, the script is a mess. Why did Judd pick this night to go bonkers? Has he been killing people all these years, or just now? The constant predictability kills the suspense.

Neville Brand, one of Hollywood's greatest underrated character actors, does a good job here until his performance eventually becomes stale. I am still trying to figure out why Carolyn Jones is covered in the horrible makeup, even her character is a little unnecessary. Poor Mel Ferrer does his best, but he has appeared in so many of these B horror movies, he looks totally bored. Robert Englund is good, his opening line is memorable, but his character is also just a small minded caricature.

"Eaten Alive" is by no means a great horror film, but if anything, it is a hundred times better than Hooper's later "Crocodile," one of the worst films ever made.

Chainsaw is the perfect horror movie, and although this is no chainsaw, it is definitley the work of the same man. This is about as good a terror film can be without being TCM. The film is never boring, the villian is ultra creepy (think drayton sawyer from TCM running a hotel), and the cinematography is perfect. I'm not exactly sure what everyones problem is with the music, it seems to fit seamlessly. Well I'm sorry folks, I just gotta say i like this one. The gator effects however do leave a little to be desired.

Unlike the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was truly frightening and fast-paced, this movie, about a hotel with a pet crocodile that dines on guests and unwanted visitors, is rather slow and silly. The film might best be classified as a tongue-in-cheek gore comedy. ("Motel Hell" (1980) is a much better example of this genre.) You will see some cinema has-beens (Mel Ferrer, Stuart Whitman, Carolyn Jones) and one cinema soon-to-be (Robert England of "Freddy" fame). Their acting talents are wasted here. Even watching a squirming Marilyn Burns gagged and tied to a metal bed frame for most of the movie isn't very exciting.

If you are a fan of campy horror movies, this one won't disappoint you. If you want a movie like "Chainsaw" that is really scary, look elsewhere.

Tobe Hooper hasn't been a great success as a director. "The TexasChainsaw Massacre" (1974), Hooper's debut as a director, was truly an inspired work, only to be followed by the lesser work reviewed here. "Poltergeist" (1982) was certainly a wonderful film, but the hand of Spielberg is too much in evidence for us to credit much of its direction to Hooper. Hooper followed "Poltergeist" with "Lifeforce" (1985), an overly long film whose high points were surely the extended physical displays of French actress Mathilda May, whose superstructure was astonishing and whose exposure was total. These occur near the beginning of the movie and at the very end. In between is tedium.

2400 years ago Aristophanes said of the obscene language in his plays that it was very hard to do right. The same, perhaps, may be said of film violence.

When Tobe Hooper released "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in 1974, people went wild over this up and coming horror film director. That movie, replete with a chainsaw wielding lunatic clad in human pelts and oppressive atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a...well, a chainsaw, proved to be effective on so many levels that it takes multiple viewings just to absorb the whole thing. I still see reviews about this movie raving about the heavy gore content, which is hilarious because Hooper's psychological thriller is bloodless. People THINK they saw buckets of gore because the disturbing and ultra seedy feel of the picture encourages a false memory that surely a film this twisted must contain gallons of sauce. When the time came to follow up this winner with another stellar contribution to the horror genre, Tobe bequeathed "Eaten Alive" to the cinematic world. The result was a resounding thud. "Eaten Alive" is an abomination; it is a flaccid, wretched attempt to recreate the magic Hooper reaped from that family of lively cannibals in Texas. This movie is so bad that it literally hurts the brain to watch it in its entirety.

Out in the bayou there is the Starlight Motel, run by a mumbling, stumbling psychotic named Judd (Neville Brand). Good old Judd doesn't get out all that much, seeing as how he has to tend to his decrepit property and feed the alligator he keeps in a pond in front of the inn. Heck, once in awhile he even sees a guest or two show up and rent a room for the night. This is fine for Judd and his pet alligator because this innkeeper knows there is a whole lotta sin out there in the world that needs fixing, and he is just the sort of man to do it. Judd's keen eye can even tell when one of the women of the night from the brothel in town turns up for the evening, as we see at the beginning of the film. Unfortunately for the owner of the Starlight, that lady has a family who actually cares about her whereabouts, and it isn't too long before her Dad (Mel Ferrar) and sister turn up in town asking a bunch of pesky questions. The sheriff of the town isn't too worried about this disappearance, nor is Miss Hattie, the madam at the local house of ill repute (Carolyn Jones). Throw in a local yokel with a penchant for pool halls, women, and booze (played by Robert Englund in one of his first roles) and a family who turns up at the Starlight during this whole mess (with the Mom played by Hooper alum Marilyn Burns), and you have all the trimmings of "Eaten Alive."

I will admit some of the murders are a wee bit entertaining. I will even admit that the idea of a pet alligator tearing some poor schlep to pieces has some allure. I will further admit that "Eaten Alive" is a terrible, boring piece of trash that entertaining murders and hungry gators cannot redeem. A large part of the problem with this film falls squarely on the shoulders of the cast. Englund provides precious few reasons to watch this film, and it is more than a bit surprising that he managed to get work after appearing in this dreck. Carolyn Jones, who played the erotic Morticia Addams (admit it; she was something to look at!) in the seminal television series, appears in the part of Miss Hattie. What an embarrassing appearance! Her entire shtick relies on her roaming around wearing a huge ball cap while blurting out nonsensical statements. Mel Ferrar, quite simply, should have known better. Marilyn Burns rehashes her "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" role here without any of the amazing verve she showed in that movie. The real death knell of "Eaten Alive" is Neville Brand as the mentally dyspeptic Judd. Large sections of the film reveal nothing except Brand ambling around his lodgings mumbling his lines in Esperanto or some equally obscure language. It sure as heck wasn't English because I didn't understand a word this guy said. Attention casting director, screenwriter, and actors of "Eaten Alive": Have you no sense of decency, sirs, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?

If you need any additional proof that "Eaten Alive" flatlines, look no further than the incredibly inept pacing. What was Tobe Hooper thinking when he let scenes run on this long without a satisfying resolution? How long does that little girl crawl around under the porch? Marilyn Burns screams and screams while bound on a bed for what seems like an eternity. Judd listens to country and western records while rambling in Sanskrit FOREVER. While we're at it, lets mention the awful lighting effects and the red tinted sky. In what part of this world is there a place where the sky is red all of the time? I'm not even going to go into as much depth as I should in describing the horribly cheesy looking alligator in Judd's pond except to say that is horrible and not in a good way cheesy. Watching this film was the equivalent of a surgeon performing your liver transplant with a pair of tweezers.

In the final analysis, "Eaten Alive" definitely ranks as one of the worst films I have ever seen. Nothing works here in any way, shape, or form. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the film is that Tobe Hooper managed to get more work afterwards. He went on to assist in the making of "Poltergeist" and helmed the intriguing "Lifeforce" in the 1980s. He still works today, although one hopes that he occasionally wakes up in a cold sweat for having produced this car wreck.

this movie was not that bad. It was also based on a true story

THIS WAS FAR FROM BEING A MASTERPIECE, HOWEVER FOR A ONE-TIME VIEWING, IT PASSES THE TIME QUITE WELL.
IT CAN'T BE TAKEN TOO SERIOUSLY, FROM THE IDIOT CHARACTERS TO THE [VERY BAD]ACTING.
THE BUDGET SEEMED TO BE LACKING AND THE CROCODILE SEEMS TO BE MADE OF RUBBER.
THE STORY IS QUITE CRAZY, TWISTED, AND DEMENTED, HOWEVER THIS IS A FAR FETCH FROM THE QUALITY OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE!!
IT HAS A GREAT DEAL OF GORE AND A GREAT AMOUNT OF NUDITY.
SO, IF YOU HAVE A LITTLE TIME, SEE THIS MOVIE AND LAUGH A LITTLE.
FAR FROM TERRIFYING, BUT FULL OF SICK HUMOR!!!

This movie rocks! OK, maybe it's not the best written, best-set movie in the world, but if you approach this movie without those expectations, it's actually pretty good. What do I mean, exactly? First of all, the chick who played Morticia in "The Addams Family" series AND Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger to the ignorant) both find themselves in it. Isn't it kinda true that you see the REAL actor when you catch them in a movie they'd never have you see? Plus, people are too quick to bash the writing. I'll say this, you can tell that Tobe Hooper had his hand in this because it defintely has its disturbing parts. As you might expect, they don't involve the rubber alligator; the creepiest scene in my opinion is the initial dialogue between the family staying in the Starlight Hotel. What a sick, all-too-plausible character the husband is! The wife asks him, "Do you just want to feed us to the alligator? (in a lower voice) Is that what you want?" The husband replies by making a "chomping" motion with his hands over and over, and all you want is for the alligator to eventually get him. And the hotel owner is a wonderfully awful Southern parallel to some of TCM's peripheral characters. There's good stuff in here! This movie is definitely worth seeing once. I've stated my case.