Eaten Alive (DVD)
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If you think Quentin Tarantino came up with the "Buck" character who likes to "fuck" for Kill Bill, then you would be dead wrong. That nasty customer also showed up in 1977 embodied by Robert Englund in Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive. By the far the best thing in the movie, and in it far too little, young Englund more that holds his own with his seasoned costars Mel Ferrer, Neville Brand, and Carolyn Jones.
Eaten Alive was shot on the lot in Hollywood, but it is set in the mossy, misty Texas bayous, where there's nothing to do but get drunk in the local tavern, go enjoy yourself at the creaky bordello down the way, then sleep it off at The Starlight Motel. The proprietor of the motel is shell-shocked war vet Judd (Neville Brand), who likes to ramble to himself, starve his pet monkeys, play obnoxious country records, and feed passersby to the giant crocodile who lives in a moat next to the Starlight.
Luckily for that croc, passersby are in abundance. Even though The Starlight seems to be located in the armpit of the world, in middle of nowhere, and looks about as inviting as an old outhouse, people stream in, check in, and then of course "check out". Sometimes they wander too close to the moat and get pulled in by a mouthful of sharp teeth (that's the fate of a frou-frou poodle), but mostly they're pre-skewered by Judd and his rusty machete before being thrown into the brackish water.
In spite of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's success and kudos, Hooper's follow-up film looks even lower budget and feels much less inspired. The acting is better on the parts of the experienced stars, but the returnees from TCM and other newbies are pretty poor (however, I will concede that they were not given much to work with in the way of dialogue).
Eaten Alive has some intriguing characters, but they are not at all likeable (yes, villains can be very likeable) and their monologues are allowed to spew on for far too long. This is a horror movie, not Shakespeare, for croc's sake! And about that giant crocodile… the movie is called Eaten Alive, but we get very little in terms of dinner and dessert in the horror department. I understand the need to keep the rubber prop out of the limelight as much as possible, but it seems there could have been some inventive ways around this problem.
The movie is an oddity to be sure, and perhaps worth checking out for "big monster movie" completists, but if you're hoping for some fun schlock along the lines of Food of the Gods or Day of the Animals, I am sorry to say there's no vacancy here.
The DVD does have some reasonably entertaining extras. In fact, some might find the 15 minute interview, entitled My Name is Buck, with Robert Englund worth the price of the disc. He has some fantastic stories to share about his career,
The Butcher of Elmendorf: The Legend of Joe Ball is a half-hour featurette featuring an interview with the nephew of Mr. Ball. Back in the 1930s, this creepy character killed some of his lovers and just happened to own a few alligators. There is no correlation -- except that Judd and Ball are both shell-shocked war vets -- between this story and Eaten Alive, but for fans of the real-life macabre, it's a nice little addition to the disc.
Finally, there are trailers for Eaten Alive, Death Trap, The
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson