EATEN ALIVE (1976), aka DEATH TRAP, HORROR HOTEL, STARLIGHT SLAUGHTER

Director: Tobe Hooper

Writers: Alvin L. Fast, Mardi Rustam, Kim Henkel

Producers: Mardi Rustam, Alvin L. Fast

Cast: Neville Brand, Robert Englund, Marilyn Burns, Stuart Whitman, Mel Ferrer, William Finley, Kyle Richards, Crystin Sinclaire, Carolyn Jones, Roberta Collins, Janus Blythe, Betty Cole, Christine Schneider, Ronald W. Davis, Sig Sakowicz, David Hayward, David Carson, Lincoln Kibbee, James Galanis, Tarja Leena Halinen, Caren White, Valerie Lukecart, Jeanne Reichert, Scuffy (the dog)

In rural Texas stands the remote and ramshackle Starlight Hotel. Its proprietor is a mentally unhinged military veteran named Judd (Neville Brand). The pond below his hotel’s front porch distinguishes the squalid accommodations. This pond is home to a huge crocodile. Despite this roadside attraction having bitten off his leg, Judd still thinks highly enough of the voracious varmint to feed it the guests that he murders.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

That Grand Guignol gourmet Tobe Hooper uses this recipe of a dollop of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), a splash of Jaws (1975), and a dash of Psycho (1960) to prep this dish of drive-in delirium called Eaten Alive. It was director Hooper’s follow up to his early-career classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it always seems to suffer by comparison. Many of Hooper’s critics say that everything else that he made suffers by comparison. I say that a director who creates a genre standard may never eclipse it, but he can continue to make effective and interesting films. That is certainly the case with Eaten Alive.

This production’s most interesting aspect is Hooper’s decision to film almost entirely on movie soundstages. Much like Alfred Hitchcock’s preferred MO, this allowed Hooper complete control of the look and atmosphere in Eaten Alive. Everything feels like it is happening in a rural twilight zone where morality and sanity are in short supply. The movie begins with the only real world exterior shot in the entire film of the full moon in the night sky. This image cross-fades into an uncomfortable close-up of a circular belt buckle and fly being opened by a whorehouse patron. From here on out, the clammy and claustrophobic world of this story is unrelenting.

Some may feel that there is little in the way of plot and an awful lot of weird character antics that are never explained to the audience. I find these bits of eccentric behavior to be interesting and, at times, even irritating, but that establishes the random chaos of human behavior that results in so much conflict and horror in the world. We have all encountered oddballs at one time or another and wondered just what the hell was their problem, yet we will never know. Those are the sorts of weirdos that populate this film as well as Hooper’s acknowledged masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That earlier film is also full of characters that are strange, quirky, and often unlikable without sharing any sort of backstory about them to justify their behavior. I think that the main difference between the two films is Chainsaw’s real world film locations and its more gradual build up to escalating terror.

Aside from this being Tobe Hooper’s second horror feature, Eaten Alive is probably most notable to horror fans for being actor Robert Englund’s debut in the genre. Of course, Englund has achieved horror movie immortality as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its sequels. In Eaten Alive, his horny character of Buck is always unlikable as he clashes with just about everyone he meets. He opens the film as he opens his pants with some vile verse that declares his drives and establishes the themes of sexual frustration and relationship dysfunction that lead to so much trouble for so many in this story.

That obnoxious horndog Buck managing to score with the luscious Lynette (Janus Blythe) is yet another perplexing and awful injustice in this film’s strange world. Maybe Lynette was a sucker for poetry. In 1977 Blythe would also appear in The Incredible Melting Man and The Hills Have Eyes.

More past and future horror film notables grace the menu of Eaten Alive. Hooper’s Chainsaw scream queen Marilyn Burns makes the scene as Faye only to suffer more abuse. She is accompanied by William Finley (star of 1974’s The Phantom of the Paradise), as her unstable husband Roy, and Kyle Richards (1978’s Halloween), as her daughter Angie. From House of Wax (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and The Addams Family television series (1964-66), Carolyn Jones allows herself to be made up into crotchety whorehouse madam Miss Hatty. The star of 1960’s Blood and Roses, Mel Ferrer, appears as the dying Harvey Wood, who is accompanied by daughter Libby (Crystin Sinclaire) and looking for his other, runaway daughter Clara (Roberta Collins).

Stuart Whitman plays Sheriff Martin. He seems to be that solid authority figure that can reign in some of the insanity running rampant in this story. However, it is soon established that this rural community plays pretty fast and loose with the law. Sheriff Martin is on very cordial terms with the whorehouse madam. As Mel Ferrer’s Harvey Wood asserts, Martin runs a “wide-open town.” This removes any sense of security we may derive from having an officer of the law around. Even though Sheriff Martin seems to be a decent sort, there is also a sense that he won’t be much of a controlling factor over the chaos at the Starlight Hotel.

Neville Brand’s performance really makes this flick click. He is both disturbing and amusing in a darkly comic way. His Judd is a lonely loony that mutters and sings to himself while looking at magazines as he tries on various pairs of old eyeglasses. He makes half-hearted attempts of dusting his cluttered and dingy hotel lobby while listening to obscure country-western songs on his enormous, old radio. His isolation from the rest of the world is only emphasized by his unexplained outbursts while he flashbacks to some traumatizing military experiences. In addition to these quirks, he has some real issues with the opposite sex that he works through with farm tools, rope, and electrical tape.

The icing on this macabre cake is the man-eating crocodile Judd keeps uncomfortably close by in the pond abutting the Starlight Hotel’s front porch. None other than Robert Mattey provided this nasty critter. Mattey was the special effects veteran who had created the giant squid for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and the giant shark for Jaws.

With an interesting cast of old pros and genre favorites, off-kilter humor provided by strange characters, an eerie and remote location, and an unsavory atmosphere, Eaten Alive satisfies the appetite of this grue glutton. Those who dismiss it for not tasting the same as Chainsaw need to order it again and savor its own distinctive flavor. It is still served dripping with Tobe Hooper’s special sauce of hysterical horror.