{"id":3794,"date":"2024-09-03T20:59:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3794"},"modified":"2024-10-14T15:07:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:07:53","slug":"eaten-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/03\/eaten-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Eaten Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Eaten Alive <\/strong>(1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Virgo International Pictures\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, graphic violence, terror, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tobe Hooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Caramico\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund, Crystin Sinclaire, Janus Blythe, Betty Cole.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0YUCK! Even among stinkers, Eaten Alive<\/strong> is really bad! It fails on virtually every level and leaves the viewer questioning director Tobe Hooper\u2019s talent. This is the man who gave us horror gems like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Poltergeist (1982). Personally, I also liked The Funhouse (1981) and Lifeforce (1985). What the hell happened here? This movie is bloody awful! It\u2019s an unwatchable mess that gives other unwatchable messes a bad name.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have no problem with low budget movies. I don\u2019t even have a problem with low budget movies that look like low budget movies. I have a problem with low budget movies that no respectable grindhouse would exhibit even as the bottom feature of a triple bill. Calling Eaten Alive<\/strong> a hack job would be an insult to hack filmmakers around the world. I only paid about $2 for the 2-disc Special Edition DVD and I still feel as though I was overcharged. I remember this movie played in the Philadelphia area in early 1984 (March or April, I think). I didn\u2019t get to see it until years later when I picked up a VHS copy at a store close-out sale (man, I loved those!). It was terrible then and it\u2019s terrible now. Eaten Alive<\/strong> isn\u2019t even entertaining on a campy level. It\u2019s so jaw-droppingly bad it makes The Mangler (another Tobe Hooper flick) look like a horror classic by comparison. If that\u2019s not an indication of how bad this movie is, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Right off the bat, Eaten Alive<\/strong> appears to be a low-rent Psycho rip-off. It\u2019s set at a rundown backwoods hotel (the Starlight Hotel) run by a creepy weirdo. His name is Judd (Brand, Without Warning) and he has a habit of feeding his guests to his pet crocodile. Here\u2019s my question, why would anybody stay in a hotel with a swamp on the premises? It\u2019s hardly a substitute for a swimming pool, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0As the movie opens, a recently fired whore from the brothel down the road comes looking for a place to stay. When Judd realizes who she is, he goes off on a psychotic rant and attacks her. He stabs her with a pitchfork and feeds her to the crocodile. Next, a bickering couple and their young daughter arrive at the hotel. While Roy (Finley, Phantom of the Paradise) and Faye (Burns, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) go at it, the family dog gets too close to the murderous reptile and ends up being its next meal. Naturally, this traumatizes the little girl whose name is Angie (Richards, The Watcher in the Woods).<\/p>\n

\u00a0After that, Harvey (Ferrer, The Visitor) and his daughter Libby (Sinclaire, Caged Heat) show up asking questions about his missing daughter. Big surprise, it\u2019s the whore from the movie\u2019s opening scenes. When Judd refuses to answer their questions, Libby goes to the town sheriff (Whitman, Crazy Mama) for help. He takes her to the brothel to talk to the madam (Jones, The Addams Family) who denies ever knowing her. Meanwhile, Roy gets it into his head to shoot the crocodile himself and ends up between the creature\u2019s powerful jaws. Faye decides to take a bath and Judd walks in on her as she\u2019s getting undressed. He beats her and ties her up in the bedroom. A frightened Angie runs and hides underneath the hotel (smart move, kid!). Naturally, she gets trapped there and you know it\u2019s only a matter of time before Judd releases the crocodile. A local troublemaker Buck (Englund, the Freddy Krueger movies) also shows up at the hotel and gets pushed into the swamp. Chomp, chomp, chomp \u2026\u2026 bye bye Buck! Do I really need to continue? It\u2019s not like I might drop any major plot spoilers; we all know where it\u2019s heading and I doubt anybody really cares anyway.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The real dilemma concerning Eaten Alive<\/strong> is figuring out where to begin when listing everything that\u2019s wrong with it. For one thing, the lighting is so poor that it\u2019s difficult to discern what\u2019s going on at times. Was this intentional? Did somebody think it would increase the movie\u2019s creepiness factor? If so, that person needs a serious refresher course in Basic Filmmaking 101. Then there\u2019s the acting. Holy crap! I\u2019ve seen some bad acting before, but the performances in Eaten Alive<\/strong> really take the cake. Brand overacts so badly as the mentally disturbed Judd that the viewer is more prone to fits of laughter than shivers down the spine. It\u2019s so bad that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre clan would disown him for being a complete embarrassment to the family name.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t understand Roy\u2019s character at all. Is he also supposed to be mentally disturbed? That would certainly explain his meltdown in the hotel room. The lack of a story line makes me wonder if the crocodile ate part of the script when nobody was looking. I\u2019ve heard of the dog eating a kid\u2019s homework, but this is ridiculous. I didn\u2019t even find the violence interesting, not even when Judd starts going after potential victims with a scythe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll say this in the movie\u2019s favor; at least it\u2019s not boring. Just when you think it can\u2019t get any worse, the filmmakers find a way to up that ante. Don\u2019t take that as any sort of recommendation; Eaten Alive<\/strong> is still an unwatchable piece of crap. By the time the final credits roll, you\u2019ll be wondering why you even bothered watching it in the first place. If only Crocodile Dundee had come in and saved the day. Where is he when you need him? I\u2019m sorry not sorry, but I have to say it. Eaten Alive<\/strong> really bites!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eaten Alive (1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Virgo International Pictures\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, graphic violence, terror, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tobe Hooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Caramico\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Eaten-Alive-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4843,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions\/4843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}