Eaten Alive (1977) from Tuna

Eaten Alive (1977) is Tobe Hopper's follow-up to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

As the film opens, Roberta Collins is working in a cathouse run by Carolyn Jones, when Robert Englund comes looking for "something different." She is in no mood for a pain in the ass, refuses him, and gets thrown out of the cathouse on the spot.

She ends up at a nearby motel, where the evil motel owner keeps a pet gator. When the owner recognizes her as one of "Hattie's girls," he kills her and feeds her to his gator. A family of three shows up, and the gator eats their little dog. The husband decides to shoot the gator, so our favorite evil hotel owner kills ol' dad and feeds him to the gator, ties the wife to the bed, and chases the little daughter under the house.

NUDITY REPORT
  • Roberta Collins wears a very thin nightie
  • Janus Blythe and Crystal Sinclair wear only panties.

DVD info from Amazon

  • The transfer is a decent job, but they were working with poor prints

  • It is letterboxed to the original widescreen theatrical ratio.

Robert Englund and Janus Blythe show up, playing a young couple looking for a night of sex, but the two run afoul of the owner, and they, too, become targets. The father and sister (Crystal Sinclair) of the dead hooker arrive. They are given the clue about the cat house, and eventually go off to visit the sheriff, setting the stage for the finale.

  • The good news: the film affords a chance to see an early appearance of Robert Englund, long before he was Freddy Kruger.

  • The bad news: the plot is monotonous, and the entire film was shot on a set so the evil motel seems very claustrophobic.

The Critics Vote ...

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a low C-. This one is only for genre addicts and fans of the director or cast members.

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