Eaten Alive (1976)

***After the success of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Hooper delivers a sleazy DUD***

The crazy dirtbag manager of a rundown hotel in east Texas (Neville Brand) threatens his clients if they upset him and feeds them to his pet croc. The cast includes notables like Mel Ferrer, Stuart Whitman, Carolyn Jones and a young Robert Englund.

Despite the presence of the croc, “Eaten Alive” (1976) is more of a slasher flick than crocogator horror (the croc is strictly peripheral, not to mention unconvincing). This was Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to his unexpected hit “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) wherein he borrows the plot of “Psycho” (1960). Unfortunately, he spectacularly fumbles the ball.

The surreal style, sets and cast are all good, but there’s a lack of confidence in the execution: The flick’s full of nonsensical actions, meanderings and padding. Hooper tried to make up for it by exploiting the women with lots of raunch & nudity, but “Chainsaw Massacre” proved that a slasher didn’t need this to be effective.

Janus Blythe stands out in the feminine department as Lynette, as does Roberta Collins as Clara. Marilyn Burns (Faye) and Crystin Sinclaire (Libby) are also noteworthy.

Thankfully, Hooper moved on to much better productions, like “Salem’s Lot” (1979), “The Funhouse” (1981) and “Crocodile” (2000).

The film runs 1 hour, 31 minutes, and was shot at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, CA.

GRADE: C-/D+

Eaten Alive devours its chance of being a credible creature feature by rarely showing its toothy puppetry. Cult horror is typically hit or miss with my taste in cinema. Quite often, I’ll appreciate and/or understand the adoration for a flick that ages finer that a campy bloody drag act. Conversely, my mind is baffled in the reasoning behind such fondness at the best of times. Hooper’s subsequent work after the impeccable slasher ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ falls into the latter. Unnecessarily sleazy, underdeveloped maniac-syndrome and useless character choices forces this swampy hotel to be nothing more than a stagnated mess, with surprisingly laughable results. A prostitute is evicted from the town brothel and subsequently finds herself checking in at the decrepit Starlight Hotel, owned by a scythe-wielding maniac and his pet Nile crocodile.

Raked to death. Scythed through the esophagus. Pushed into mystically inclined water and, you guessed it, eaten alive. Yet despite the repetitive murderous narrative structure, that sees little to no depth in the manager’s antagonistic motives (other than he’s cuckoo), there’s minimal cohesion throughout. Dumb characters check into the most dilapidated hotel available, accompanied by the ethereally strangest bright red light ever, strip so their breasts are on full-display and then encounter “Mr. Croc” (or Judd I think his name was...) who erotically moans his way to the porch where he feeds his pet puppet...I mean crocodile. With no dimensionality in any action he takes, we as the audience are simply watching his maniacal debauchery as a means of entertainment. Problem is, it’s rarely enjoyable when the characters are expendable bones. Even the abnormally shaped dog was immediately dispensable!

Hooper replicated many aspects from his previous directorial efforts. Frantically running around foliage whilst in pursuit by a blade-wielding psychopath, only to then be rescued by a passing vehicle. Bloody infrequent deaths that exercise cheap yet enjoyable, if you’re a sadist like myself, gore that heightens the horror vibes residing within. But the filmmaking and its contents hide in the shadow of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, and Eaten Alive can’t seem to chomp its way out.

And, again, it’s a consequence of how underdeveloped these characters are. Example: a fractious couple arrive, with the disturbed husband behaving more unusually than the flippin’ psychotic manager, to which their young daughter flees the scene and hides within the crawlspace of the hotel. For. The. Entire. Film. Screaming at anything that moves an inch, she doesn’t even try to escape knowing full well that the manager is occupied with other guests. Then the sheriff is introduced and doesn’t care about anything, running around his vehicle nonchalantly unconcerned by the bloody mess on the porch calmly stating “are you okay?”. Like heck is she okay! She just got tossed over the banister and scythed twice! Do they look like tears of joy to you? Englund, without his Freddy Krueger attire, arrives and makes love to a girl by stealing keys to a room and ignoring the squeals of a little girl underneath the floorboards? Yeah, I’m done with the characters.

The production design clearly emanated an inexpensive set, with the hotel walls looking like they would flake at any moment. Although, Hooper’s score was surprisingly unflinching and, despite the audacious noises made, gave this cult horror some edgy flavour. And the crocodile moving through the crawlspace? Incredibly animate, I must confess.

However, that doesn’t excuse a creature feature without prominently featuring its creature. Sure, less is more, but nothing is nothing. Masochistically sleazy, and naturally campy, yet failed to exercise its full potential by withdrawing any and all bite within its plot.

Yikes, what was Mel Ferrer thinking when accepted the, admittedly brief, part in this nonsense? Neville Brand plays well, though, as the eccentric old-timer "Judd" who keeps a ramshackle old motel right beside a creek in which lives his caged-in pet alligator. Despite being in the back of beyond, this little establishment receives it's fair share of visitors and well, yes - you can guess the rest. Meantime, Ferrer - the wealthy "Wood" is out searching for his daughter whom he thinks ended up on the game working for the star of the film - "Miss Hattie" (Carolyn Jones) who runs the local house of ill-repute. At times this is quite an entertainingly silly romp and I frequently wondered if Jack Elam would have been better in the lead role. There's no jeopardy: of course we all know what happens in the end, but on a big screen with the right amount Malbec in your system, this is quite a watchable ninety minutes of low-budget, studio-shot, cinema that raises the odd smile but certainly not the hairs on the back of your neck.