Eaten Alive (1976)

A psychotic redneck, who owns a dilapidated hotel in rural East Texas, kills various people who upset him or his business, and he feeds their bodies to a large crocodile that he keeps as a pet in the swamp beside his hotel.

Director:

Tobe Hooper

Writers:

Alvin L. Fast, Mohammed Rustam (as Mardi Rustam)

Stars:

Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Neville Brand	...	Judd
Mel Ferrer	...	Harvey Wood
Carolyn Jones	...	Miss Hattie
Marilyn Burns	...	Faye
William Finley	...	Roy
Stuart Whitman	...	Sheriff Martin
Roberta Collins	...	Clara
Kyle Richards	...	Angie
Robert Englund	...	Buck
Crystin Sinclaire	...	Libby Wood
Janus Blythe	...	Lynette (as Janus Blyth)
Betty Cole	...	Ruby
Sig Sakowicz	...	Deputy Girth
Ronald W. Davis	...	Country Boy
Christine Schneider	...	Waitress

Storyline

Judd runs the Starlight Hotel out in some sort of swampy place and is unfortunately a few slices short of a loaf. He has a crocodile conveniently placed on the other side of the hotel's front porch railing. The croc will eat just about anything, as the hapless guests of the hotel find out soon enough. A reformed hooker, an unlucky family, and the father and sister of the hooker all suffer various rates of attrition as Judd tries to implement damage control.

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Plot Keywords:

b movie | serial killer | brothel madam | sheriff | prostitute | 

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Taglines:

Welcome to Starlight Hotel. Your room is reserved...Check in...But never check out! ("Starlight Slaughter" release)

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 May 1977 (USA)

Also Known As:

Brutes and Savages

Filming Locations:

Raleigh Studios - 5300 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$520,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mars Productions Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Film director Quentin Tarantino must be a fan of the film. Robert Englund near the beginning of Eaten Alive says the line "My name is Buck, and I'm here to *****". In Kill Bill vol. 1 Actor Michael Bowen's character Buck repeats the exact line before forcing himself on a comatose Bride (Uma Thurman).

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Goofs

Right at the end of the film when the crocodile pulls Judd under the water head first, look to the left of the screen to see a scuba diver under the water who turns is clearly moving. He is obviously a safety stuntman of some sort. You can clearly see his hand and is dressed in black.

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Quotes

Buck: Name's Buck... and I'm rarin' to fuck.

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Alternate Versions

The film received notoriety in the UK after being withdrawn as a member of the infamous DPP List of video nasties. For its original UK cinema release in 1978 cuts were made to the scythe murders, the beating of Faye by Judd (as her daughter watches) and flashback images to the earlier sex scene between Buck and Clara. For the 1992 video release the film was cut by 25 secs and retained the cuts to the scythe murders and the beating of Faye, plus additional cuts to the rake murder of Clara by Judd. In 2000 the film was passed completely uncut by the BBFC.

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Connections

Referenced in Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth (2000)

User Reviews

A disappointing follow up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from Tobe Hooper.

Crazy old Judd (Neville Brand) is the owner of a run down hotel on the edge of a swamp that is home to a massive crocodile. 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. It even features a scene in which a young woman is chased through the woods by a maniac wielding a large cutting tool. 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.