Displaying items by tag: Robert Englund

EATEN ALIVE

US, 1976, 91 minutes, Colour.

Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund, Crystin Sinclaire.

Directed by Tobe Hooper.

The breakout of horror films in the mid-1970s, Tobe Hooper with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, filmed by Wes Craven, Friday the 13^th…

Eaten Alive is Tobe Hooper’s immediate film after Chainsaw Massacre. It is very much in the vein, not a film about Cannibals, rather a range of victims hounded by the insane hotel owner into the jaws of an alligator/crocodile.

In retrospect, quite an exploitation film of brutality and violence as well as provocative nudity and sexuality. Often repellent.

It is a surprise to find some of the older stars in the film, Neville Brand committing himself wholeheartedly into his mad brutal villain role, Mel Ferrer rather dapper, Carolyn Jones as the local madam 20 years after her film heyday. Stuart Whitman as his regular screen presence – and, surprisingly, a rather young Robert Englund some years before he turned into Freddy Krueger.

Threads of plot, a runaway girl, caught in a brothel, running away, the mad hotel owner, a family arriving and the little girl spending the whole film hiding under the house to avoid the alligator, a father and his daughter searching for their runaway, and some of the harsh young locals – most of them finishing up in the deadly jaws.

Mostly for the record, the horror films of the time, the career of Tobe Hooper which extended from the early 1970s to 2013, a wide range of feature films including televisions Salem’s Lot and the more popular Poltergeist.