Eaten Alive Year: 1976 Director: Tobe Hooper Written by: Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast, Mardi Rustam Threat: Psychopath Weapon of Choice: Crocodile Based upon: nothing IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
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Rish Outfield's reviews
An awful, cheap, and awful-cheap ‘70's horror movie that must have a cult following, for it received recent DVD treatment [editor's note: everything receives recent DVD treatment][writer's note: oh].
So, out in bayou country, in the middle of nowhere, there's a run-down hotel. The proprietor of this hotel is a crazy guy who keeps an African crocodile as a pet. And, any chance he gets, he feeds passing guests to his baby. And this guy rants incoherently to himself a lot.
This was an extraordinarily unpleasant film. Even more so than Texas Chainsaw, since there's not much entertainment here. I didn't like Eaten Alive, or Horror Hotel, as it was titled some places. It barely progressed and captivated so little of my attention that for a while, I just forgot I was watching it, and went about other business. It was slow moving beyond normally accepted limits, taking WAY too long to do...anything, really. There was a lot of screaming and standing around, waiting for the crocodile to eat someone or for the crazy guy to finish talking. From beginning to end, the dialogue was near-incomprehensible--which may have been the fault of the copy I was watching, but I choose not to believe it. Englund appears as a mean ole country boy, but nobody was very likable or believable. And there were bad wigs.
Best Scare: The crocodile, when you couldn't see it, was spooky. When it showed itself to be completely fake, then it wasn't scary anymore.
I'd Recommend It To: Tobe Hooper completists, and people who really want to see it, like really.

The tyranist's thoughts
I'm not a big fan of Tobe Hooper's, maybe not even a fan. Rish handed me this tape a while ago though and I thought the time had finally come for me to check it out. I should've waited longer.
I found the movie to be slow, dull, and primarily punctuated by insane soliloquies. The characters where either uninteresting or very unlikable. There was a lot of unexplained action and virtually no chain of cause and effect in the plot. Oh, and no bras either.
This film leads me to think that there may be a problem with isolated motel/hotel movies the same way there are problems with haunted house movies. They just aren't easy to make and very few even manage to be interesting. It didn't help that a lot of moments in this one looked like they happened on a soundstage when they were supposed to be outdoors. There have been better crocodile movies, better motel movies, and many better horror movies.
Don't see this one. Unless you are a big Robert Englund fan. Then it might be fun to see what he did before Freddy. Of course, this may cure you of wanting to know as well.

Total Skulls: 19

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears		Robert Englund
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?