Eaten Alive
Tags: grindhouse film, murder, cult, horror, violence, insanity

Plot synopsis:
After refusing a request from frisky customer named Buck (Robert Englund) who wants anal sex, the naive and inexperienced prostitute Clara Wood (Roberta Collins) is evicted from the town brothel by the madam, Miss Hattie (Carolyn Jones). Clara makes her way across the local swamp to a decrepit hotel, called the Starlight Hotel, to check into a room for the night where she encounters the scruffy and mentally disturbed proprietor Judd (Neville Brand) and his pet crocodile in the swamp beside the front porch. Upon realizing Clara was a prostitute, Judd attacks her while ranting and raving. When Clara tries to defend herself, Judd stabs her with a pitchfork and feeds her to the crocodile.Some days later, a fractious couple, the outgoing Faye (Marilyn Burns) and her mentally disturbed husband Roy (William Finley), along with their young daughter Angie (Kyle Richards) arrive at the hotel to check in since they are driving across country. They soon experience the trauma of the Angie's persistantly barking and overly curious pet dog being eaten by the crocodile. Faye and Roy take their daughter to their room to try and try to calm her down.The insane Roy decides to shoot the crocodile with a shotgun for eating their dog, but Judd intervenes. During the struggle, Roy shoots Judd in his right leg, but it is revealed that Judd's right leg is a wooden prostetic which he apparently lost years earlier when it was bitten off by his pet crocodile. Judd angrily stabs Roy with a scythe before he is attacked and devoured by the huge crocodile which breaks through the porch railing and swallows Roy whole.After getting Angie to sleep, Faye goes into the bathroom for a bath, however she is interrupted by Judd who begins to beat her. Angie wakes up and runs from the hotel. However, Angie gets trapped underneath the hotel by Judd, who proceeds to tie up Faye in a vacant room where he spends the rest of the movie sexually fondling her while Angie remains trapped under the floorboards of the hotel.That evening, Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer) and his daughter Libby arrive at the Starlight Hotel seeking information on the whereabouts of Clara, Harvey's daughter who had run away from home several months earlier. Judd calmly denies having ever seen Clara when he is shown a photo of her. Never less, Harvey and Libby check into separate rooms and then leave to try and locate her at Miss Hattie's brothel.Accompanied by Sheriff Martin (Stuart Whitman), Harvey and Libby question Miss Hattie, who lies to them by denying ever seeing Clara (apparently still angry over Clara upsetting her business). Harvey returns to the hotel while Libby stays in town to eat dinner with Sheriff Martin. When Harvey hears Angie's crying underneath the floorboards of the porch, he begins to investigate and is attacked by Judd who stabs him in the neck with his scythe. Judd then drags his dead body to the swamp to be eaten by the crocodile.While Sheriff Martin and Libby are at the local bar having dinner and drinks, Martin kicks out Buck and his sluttish girlfriend Lynette (Janus Blythe) after a fight nearly breaks out between Buck and another local redneck barfly. The pair venture to the hotel, much to the annoyance of Judd who had already warned Buck to stay away from his land. While in their room to have sex, they hear Angie's cries for help. Buck goes to investigate and is pushed off the porch and into the swamp by Judd, where he is quickly eaten alive by Judd's crocodile. Lynette hears the commotion, and goes outside only to be chased by Judd and his scythe into the nearby swamps. She manages to get to a road where she flags down a passing car and gets away.At the same time, Libby arrives back at the hotel and goes up to her room. Judd arrives back also, and opens up the gate for the crocodile to get in under the house so it can eat Angie. Meanwhile, Libby discovers Faye tied up in the room. After freeing her, the two women attempt to leave, however Judd chases them back upstairs where he wounds Faye with the scythe. Libby escapes out a window and begins to help Angie out of the swamp she has managed to get into to evade the crocodile. Judd throws the severly wounded Faye off a balcony and then he attempts to push Angie back into the swamp while struggling with Libby. But at the last second, Faye arrives and pushes Judd over the fence into the swamp, where he is devoured by his pet crocodile. Sheriff Martin arrives at the hotel minutes later to arrest Judd after being alerted by Lynette only to find the bloodied but alive Faye, and the shaken but unwounded Libby and Angie. All that is left of Judd is his prostetic wooden leg floating in the swamp beside the hotel.

Review: Although not as entirely successful as Chainsaw, "Eaten Alive" is one messed up little drive in flick with good performances particularly by Brand as the psycho Inn keeper of "Starlight Hotel".
It's still a hell of an entertaining trashy horror movie.Neville Brand ('The Ninth Configuration') gives a gonzo, almost vintage Timothy Carey-like performance as psycho scythe wielding Judd, owner of the one place in town you really don't want to check in to.
Some of these unexpected guests who face this horror that awaits them ranged from a reform hooker, an unfortunate family and the hooker's father and sister who are looking for the missing girl.Tobe Hooper (director) and Kim Henkel (co-writer) the two who brought us one of the most powerful and groundbreaking horror films of all time "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" team up again for their next independent B-grade project: the crzay exploitation piece "Eaten Alive".
Well, if you saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and were impressed with director Tobe Hooper, your next move might be to view his second film Eaten Alive.
`The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (of course) and `Death Trap' (less obvious already) are the only two films Tobe Hooper should be really remembered for as a horror director.
"Eaten Alive"(1976),director Tobe Hooper's second and less successful stab at backwoods horror following the success/notoriety of his brilliant "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"(1974)is one of the most bizarre horror movies ever made.The plot revolves around demented motel owner Judd(Neville Brand)who likes feeding his guests to his pet alligator in the swamp outside.With its gory set-pieces and gratuitous nudity,and Neville Brand's over-the-top performance as Judd "Eaten Alive" is a truly visceral experience.Great location sets:the dilapidated hotel at the edge of the swamp is so bizarre,that it may as well exist on another planet,or in some alternate insane reality.The acting is very good,Marilyn Burns once again proves that she can emote hysterically and Robert Englund is really convincing as a local-yokel Buck.The film is grainy,even ugly looking at times,so don't expect any polished crap from Hollywood.For me this the best(along with his debut of course!)Tobe Hooper's horror film.A must see for horror fans!.
Toby Hooper's follow up to his classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was this atmospherically bizarre horror oddity.Deep in the swamps, a crazed hotel owner is keeping a monster crocodile in his yard and occasionally feeding offensive people to it!As with Texas Chainsaw Hooper gives this film lots of spooky atmosphere, but he really puts it into over-drive with Eaten Alive.
Horror fans will see lots of familiar faces in the cast - Marilyn Burns (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), William Finley (Sisters), Robert Englund (Elm Street movies), Janus Blythe (The Hills Have Eyes), and young Kyle Richards (Halloween).While Eaten Alive doesn't reach the nightmarish heights of some of Hoopers other films, it is a good B horror picture.
The old coot, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, thinks nothing of feeding his guests to the old croc, after hacking them to death with his huge scythe.Eaten Alive, Tobe Hooper's follow up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was co written by Chainsaw collaborator Kim Henkel, and stars Marilyn Burns, the damsel-in-distress from the '74 horror classic.
However, this movie fails to capture the intense feeling of terror that Hooper delivered so well with his incredible debut; only in the closing moments of Eaten Alive does he manage anything close to the absolute horror of his first and finest film.Before that, we get a rather dreary hour and a half of loopy old Judd muttering to himself and occasionally offing the odd guesttipping them into the water for his scaly friend to devour.
The realism of Chainsaw is gone, replaced by an almost cartoonish atmosphere; the characters are mostly freakish caricatures, there is a smattering of gore, everything is swathed in garish primary-coloured light, and the old croc is as bad as one might expect from a low budget horror.Tobe also finds time to throw a few fit birds into the mix, and two of them obligingly flip their norks out (and very fine they are too).Eaten Alive is enjoyable on a trashy level, and if this had been directed by anyone other than the director of possibly the finest horror movie of all time, I wouldn't have felt quite so disappointed; but as a follow up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive just didn't impress me enough..
Eaten Alive is a movie I STRONGLY reccommend to fans of Massacre as it follows Mr.Hooper's similar recipe.Great horrifying shooting and wild lighting.Incredibly dense sense of macabre.Total atmosphere of insanity and hopelessness.I don't want to comment on the plot(which I liked) but rather to encourage people to see(or re-see) this movie and try to absorb the atmosphere!!
It is a disturbing and worthwhile flick(kind I wish Tobe Hooper would continue making) but people that just want to cling to the cliche that Texas Chainsaw Massacre has become,don't bother.You might never see another movie you like as long as you live.
Directed by Tobe Hooper (following up on the success of his first film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), "Eaten Alive" is about a junky old hotel run by an old guy more demented than Norman Bates ever was.
For some reason, he murders unsuspecting guests with a scythe and feeds them to the always-hungry animal.Tobe Hooper's follow-up to his cult hit "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is surprisingly disappointing, lacking suspense and atmosphere that worked in the last film.
"Hey Tobe, why did you think we wanted to see a movie with Robert Englund as a sodomy-obsessed nutcase and a filty, rundown hotel with an obvious psychopath for a proprietor and a random, fake-looking alligator?"  Maybe Hooper was drunk on the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
After making a film about CHAINSAWS in 1974, Director Tobe Hooper would go on to make a movie using another hardly used, yet immense, horror asset; crocodiles!
The story this time follows a hotel owner that, for one reason or another, enjoys battering his guests and feeding them to the crocodile while they're still alive, which isn't a bad premise for a movie at all in my opinion!
Especially when they are upset of the management of his bayou hotel.Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 & 2, Poltergeist, Salem's Lot) made a truly garishly stylized, unrelentingly bizarre film.
Also the film has a good cast like:Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Staurt Whitman, Janus Blythe, Kyle Richards and a young Robert Englund.
And it has a great cast for a horror: Western star Stuart Whitman as the Sheriff, an after-Morticia Carolyn Jones as a brothel owner, Mel Ferrer as the father of a dead girl who is then killed by the croc, and future horror star Robert Englund as a sex pervert.By the way, I liked it not that much, but it's still an unusual horror from the 1970s recommended especially to fans to the genre.
Eaten Alive is the film that Tobe Hooper made after having made the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Cool to see him in one of his earliest roles, actually I think this was his first film.We also get Madelyn Burns (whom we also saw in TCM) here she spends most of her time gagged to a bed, and nearing the end she does her scream queen bit, screeming and running from a demented Judd.Add to that a slew of weird characters (including this really strange lady who runs the local whore house), a truly insane soundtrack which include some really outlandish hillbilly songs (yes banjos and everything)and some crazy guests that arrive to the hotel and you got yourself one absolutely freaky flick.Im glad I finally got to see this flick, dont pass it up if you are interested in seeing a truly bizarre flick with some cool deaths, one of Tobe Hoopers rarest films, and in my humble opinion a movie that deserves to be watched by more people out there in horror world.Rating: 31/2 out of 5.
All of this would be fine and well, except that Judd has murderous impulses, and his alligator has a taste for human flesh.Panned by many and beloved by some, "Eaten Alive" likely got a great deal of the flack it did simply by virtue of being Hooper's follow-up to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Make no mistake, "Eaten Alive" comes nowhere near "Chainsaw," but it is a respectably entertaining, morbid, and sometimes darkly funny horror film.
The film also boasts a cast of would-be horror royalty, including performances from Robert Englund, Marilyn Burns (returning from "Chainsaw"), and an even-younger Kyle Richards, pre-"Halloween."Overall, "Eaten Alive" is an unusual offering from Hooper, and though not one of his best, it's certainly not one of his worst films, either.
Among those that could be on the menu are Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer), an old man searching for his daughter, and a young family that includes William Finley as the father and Marilyn Burns of TCSM as the mother!You know good times are ahead when the first performer to make his entrance is the great Robert Englund, who, before insisting on doing it doggy style with inexperienced whore Clara (Roberta Collins), utters the memorable lines: "My names' Buck.
Night Shamaylan started making horribly inadequate movies after the superior "Sixth Sense" Tobe Hooper twenty years earlier was following up his cult masterpiece "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with the dull and moronic "Eaten Alive".
The cast is forgettable as Mel Ferrer stars in his first of two movies titled "Eaten Alive" and Robert Englund makes his film debut as Buck who like to fu......fornicate.
Things get out of control when a family consisting of a mother (Marilyn Burns), a very weird father (Frank Finley) and a little girl (Kyle Richards) drop by to spend the night.Tobe Hooper's second film (after "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") is bizarre (to say the least).
Carolyn Jones (who plays a madam) was in "The Addams Family" TV series; Brand himself was in quite a few horror films; Burns was in Hooper's previous "Chainsaw"; Richards played one of the kids in "Halloween" and even Robert Englund (Mr. Freddy Krueger himself) has a small role.
But between Hooper's direction, Neville Brand's inspired raving as the scythe-waving Judd, and appearances by a motley crew of exploitation film vets, this is an often hysterically funny horror comedy (successful horror comedies are not something you see very often) which takes the humorous aspects of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre plot to the extreme, while still managing to be intense and suspenseful when it has to be.
Eaten Alive' is known as Death Trap' in the United Kingdom and thus I shall be using this alternate title in reference to the film.Judd (Neville Brand), a deranged southern psychopath, runs the Starlight Hotel and even keeps a pet crocodile in the swamp next to it.
The guests of this hotel soon learn about Judd's eccentricities and discover (to their own dismay) that the crocodile will eat just about anything.Tobe Hooper's follow up to the immensely successful The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' (1974) is a slow and dull failure of a movie lacking all the charm and intrigue that TCM possessed.
Boy what a mess this movie was.Tobe Hooper's follow up to the great "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is just plain bad.The more Hooper films I see the more I'm convinced he just lucked out with "TCM" cause everything else I've seen by him pretty much blows chunks.A crazy motel owner living in the backwoods on the edge of a swamp keeps his pet gator happy,which he claims is a croc for some reason, by a continuous supply of fresh meat.This motel owner runs around waving what I took to be a wheat hook,or whatever you call one of those things that Death is always seen carrying.The crazy hotel owner, called Judd ,just can't compare to the sinister chainsaw waving Leatherface and that may be the problem----everything Hooper ever does will be compared to "TCM".But with this picture comparison to "TCM" isn't the big problem.The big problem is this picture sucks even if you didn't know anything about Hooper and "TCM".The script is just horrible.I was trying to figure out what a couple who had stopped by the hotel were talking about after they got to their room and I never could catch on to it.It was like they were talking in code---a sentence never connected to the one before or after it.Maybe Hooper was trying to create an eerie disjointed feel but most of the script was just nonsensical ramblings from Judd or some of the other characters.And Hooper didn't seem to know what to do with Judd a lot of the time.....he just sort of ambled around the lobby of the motel and dusted while people upstairs and outside were screaming and yelling.The soundtrack,if you can call it that,was the radio in the motel lobby that stayed on during the entire movie...it played generic sounding country music that was probably made up for the picture so no royalties would have to be paid.The result was a steady stream of boring droning stereotypical country songs about cowboys and lost loves by people who couldn't really sing if their life depended on it.For me ,as a music lover, this generic lazy-ass approach to something so constantly used in the film was almost the worst thing about this movie.But the special effects were bad too.The croc was a big plastic looking piece of junk mostly hid by bad lighting and black swamp water.The whole pic was cursed by bad lighting and grainy looking film,those things gave "TCM" some of it's aura,here they were just cheapo looking and annoying.The whole set itself looked worse than the fake island sets used on "Gilligan's Island".But this little junky run down motel setting out in the swamp was a busy place nonetheless just like "Gilligan's Island" was.You'd think this place was in downtown New York by the amount of people passing through.The only redeeming thing about this pic was a couple of topless chicks we get to see near the end of this mess.I guess by then Hooper had realized that the crappy mess he had so far was a stinker and his last ditch effort to save this disaster was some boobage.Didn't work,the bad lighting mostly ruined those too (or four), i should say..
The bodies begin to pile up as Judd tries to protect his beloved man- eater, and when Clara's father and sister turn up, Judd must also evade being discovered by the law.Following up a horror masterpiece like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is hardly an envious task, but Tobe Hooper decided to stay in familiar surroundings with Eaten Alive (known as Death Trap in the UK).
It's a surprise that Death Trap (Eaten Alive) was the film Tobe Hooper followed up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with as, at first sight, TCM is totally and utterly superior in every way.
The Crocodile part of the story is actually quite minor and until the end i don't feel was the main disturbing part of the movie, but it was the character of the sick and disturbed hotel owner Judd (Neville Brand) who portrayed the character superbly, who made the film truly great.
Eaten Alive is a product made possible by acclaimed director Tobe Hooper of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame...a film that almost everyone has seen or at least heard of.
It's interesting to note that the female lead of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Marilyn Burns, makes an appearance yet again to display her intense acting abilities to emulate the fears of a victim.The plot concerns a deranged hotel owner by the name of Judd who wields a scythe and feeds his victims to his pet alligator.
Director Hooper's mainstream follow-up to his seminal THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) doesn't live up to its predecessor  or its own middling reputation as a blackly comedic macabre venture whose plot, basically, involves a crazy hotel owner deep in bayou country who feeds his customers to a crocodile living in the swamp adjoining his place!The film, in fact, is a bit of a mess  generally heavy-handed and peopled by obnoxious characters (especially Neville Brand as the grizzled psycho, William Finley  the titular figure of Brian De Palma's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE [1974] himself  as a weirdo staying at the hotel with his family, and a young Robert Englund as a yokel who deems himself the self-appointed local stud).
**SPOILERS**Trying to be a combination of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Psycho" the movie "Eaten Alive" falls flat on both accounts with it's only redeeming feature being the few nude scenes in it that are far more hotter than anything, including the Janet Leigh stripped down to her bra scene,in both of those films.The basic story itself is anything but new with this peg legged psycho Old Judd, Neville Brand, having a pet African crocodile that he had shipped to his home in the Louisiana Bayou to keep him company.
Tobe Hooper's cheapo follow-up to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is more like a grindhouse sleaze flick than a proper horror film, featuring as it does tons of gratuitous nudity, sleazy and grim characters.
Director, Tobe Hooper follows up on his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with this equally bizarre and maniacal exploitation film set in the deep south featuring a psycho scythe-wielding hotel owner who slices up his patrons and feeds them to an enormous crocodile that he keeps in the swamp beneath his property.
Toby Hooper's follow up to Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the story of Neville Brand who runs a hotel in a swamp.
Judd becomes even more insane as the hole he has dug for himself gets bigger and bigger.Directed by Tobe Hooper this was his second film after the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).