Eaten Alive

A deranged motel owner kills people and feeds their bodies to his pet crocodile.

Eaten Alive is director Tobe Hooper’s disappointing follow up to his breakout film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. While the deep-south rural horror theme remains, just about everything else that made The Texas Chain Saw Massacre so good is missing from Eaten Alive.

First, there are the characters, all of which are paper-thin. The lead villain, played by Neville Brand, lacks anything resembling a back-story and it’s hard to believe he could have survived so long near a town, especially given that he’s not above offing the locals.

As for Brand’s character’s victims, they’re mostly eye candy, with various women showing up, getting topless, then stabbed and/or fed to the croc. Without any emotional investment in any of the characters, there’s no real sense of terror when Brand comes lunging at them with his scythe.

Then there’s the production. The whole film takes place at night and while Hooper does construct some interesting lighting situations, the film feels stagy, lacking the gritty realism of his earlier work. This again results in an emotional disconnect from the violence onscreen.

Eaten Alive ultimately feels very sloppy, as if Hooper felt that a rampaging redneck and a claustrophobic setting equated to horror, and that audiences could be distracted from the gaping story holes by some gratuitous nudity and creative lighting.

That said, fans of pure exploitation horror may find Eaten Alive enjoyable, but those looking for anything resembling story, characterization, or real thrills need to look elsewhere.