Review of Eaten Alive (1976) by Peter H — 01 Jul 2010

My copy of the DVD TOBE HOPPERS EATEN ALIVE; in its blurb refers to this as "Hooper's Lost Masterpiece" and after one viewing of this film at first it's hard to see why that is true. In its basic description it might not sound like a Masterpiece even of the horror genre, a psychopathic, sex crazed hotelier in the Louisiana swaps hunts anyone he gets mad at with a scythe and feeds them to his pet Crocodile . Yeah sounds well stupid and clichéd as hell right? Well yeah it dose but this film was made only 3 years after Hooper made his masterpiece THE TEXAS CHIANSAW MASSCARE which becomes quite clear by this films overall appearance. Hooper in some respects recreates that raw edge that made CHAINSAW so powerful in this film with a mix of setting and unsettling sound. With CHAINSAW he used a clucking chicken in a room filled with human remains to create that unnerving feeling and in EATEN ALIVE Hooper uses the freaky cry of a distressed child under the floor of the hotel with the psychopath pacing up top with the intent of killing the child to add to that unnerving sense. So is EATEN ALIVE really 'HOOPERS LOST MASTERPIECE" or is it just another miss fire for the director, well I think I should start to give a brief plot summary to shed any light on that statement.

So the movie opens on (of all things) foreplay with a prostitute called Carla and her client Buck (played by none other than MR FREDDY KRUGER himself Robert Eungland) who deliverers a terrific line "Names Buck, I'm Ready to Fuck". On a completely different note the character Buck and his catch parse was lovingly worked into Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL VOL 1 but the phrase changes slightly to "Names Buck, I'm here to fuck". Anyway back to EATEN ALIVE, so Clara refuses to have anal sex with Buck as a result it gets her kicked out of the brothel by its owner. Clara with nowhere to go takes up the advice of the Maid to go and spend the night at the Starlight Hotel. At the hotel the owner Judd (played brilliantly by Neville Brand) tries to make a pass a Clara but she refuses him which gets mad, so since it's a horror film Judd kills her and feeds her to his pet crocodile. A few days later a family shows up with their dog to take a restroom break at the Hotel BUT the dog gets eaten alive by the Croc. So Judd forces them upstairs to calm down while he freaks out. So the father gets his shot gun to kill the croc but Judd kills him with a scythe and FEEDS HIM TO THE CROC. Judd then ties up the mother and tie her to his bed while the little girl screams and Judd traps her under the hotel. The rest of the film revolves around this plot plus the other victims like the murdered hooker father and sister showing up to look for her and Buck and his gal (who he fuck's I might add), other than that I don't need to go into too much detail with this plot.

The acting was ok but the stand outs were Neville Brand as Judd who is good as this movies Killer and Robert Eungland as Buck the entertaining scum bag. The direction here feels like Hooper was borrowing the atmosphere and raw power of his classic and putting it into a somewhat second rate horror film. To be honest Hooper's presents in the director's chair lifts this film dramatically; in fact the script seems to be the one main thing that drags it down. So is it really as the DVD case suggests this is 'HOOPERS LOST MASTERPIECE" or is it another tacky exploitation horror film from the late 70's. For me it comes in between the two, it's no way near as brilliant as PG friendly POLTERGEIST or his infamous debut with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACARE but it's not a crappy low budget Grindhouse horror film at the same time, over all its well Average the scripting doesn't work well with Hooper's efforts at the helm of this largely forgotten horror film from the late 1970's. 6/10.