My review of 'Eaten Alive!'
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EATEN ALIVE! (1980)
(Directed by Umberto Lenzi)
"It is probably one of the more entertaining films within the Italian Cannibal genre....Let that sink in for a moment."- Signed by MartialHorror.
Plot: A woman goes searching for her sister in the Jungles of New Guinea, only to discover she has joined a cult that has cut itself off from any form of civilization. There’s also a bunch of cannibals running around who like to rape and eat people….
Review:
Italian Cannibal movies suck. They just do. They’re all interchangeable, they’re all pretty shoddily made, they’re all sleazy in the most unpleasant way possible and they’re all immensely boring. Yet I’m a sadist in that I like to watch people die gruesomely and a masochist in that I will endure 80 minutes of boredom simply for the 10 minutes of people dying gruesomely. Why else would I watch Umberto Lenzi’s “Eaten Alive”? I mean, all of the reviews I read seem to point to one (disturbing) claim: It’s almost as good as “Cannibal Ferox”. THAT IS NOT SOMETHING ANY MOVIE SHOULD BE PROUD OF! Yet I watched it and……actually kind of enjoyed it.
Wait? What? How?
Okay, that’s maybe a strong statement. “Eaten Alive” isn’t really an enjoyable film, but it’s…..almost enjoyable. I almost kind of liked it. It’s not a good movie and its technical achievements are even worse off than most of its ilk, yet it has something that few Italian Cannibal movies have: A sense of pacing. Sort of. Maybe. Kind of........It's still better paced than most of them!
The film opens in New York, because all Italian movies always have to try and remind us that the film was totally shot in New York(sarcasm). I’m pretty sure the opening shot is the same shot in every Italian horror film ever made. Yet much to my surprise, there is more New York footage than usual. We first meet Sheila(Janet Agren) walking through the streets of what I presume is the actual New York. The scene kind of reminds me of the killers prowling in Lucio Fulci’s “New York Ripper”, but there is something awkward about this whole bit. Everyone Sheila passes seems to be watching her or staring into the camera. This is because they aren’t real extras. They’re just normal people wondering who this chick is and why a camera crew is following her. It’s even funnier than the final shot in Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie”, where zombies are crowding the bridge while normal traffic goes on under them. This sets up the film as unintentionally hilarious, and there is more unintentional hilarity to come. Yet I also have to admire them for being able to capture so much New York footage. It’s technically illegal to shoot a movie in the States without a permit, which was too expensive for the Italians. The end result is it must’ve been REALLY intense for these filmmakers to film these scenes… Anyway, moving on…..
Prior to actually meeting our leading lady, we see some dark skinned dude kill a few white guys using a poisonous dart. Because he’s an idiot and apparently doesn’t understand the concept of not standing in the road, screaming, while a truck comes towards you, he’s killed. The police find footage of barbaric acts by a cult run by Jonas(Ivan Rassimov). The parallels between Jonas and Jim Jones is obvious. Sheila’s sister is apart of the cult and she decides to track her down. This takes her to New Guinea, where she hires a drunken badass named Mark(Robert Kerman). They discover that while the cult is still around, it’s deep in the jungle where cannibals roam. They manage to find the cult, but discover the cult is not a harmless sect and they will have to fight both them AND the cannibals......who like to rape people before they eat them. Ew.
Before I review this film, let me review the Italian Cannibal genre real quick. Each of these films have moments of stand-out gore. They have scenes of people getting either impaled, castrated, disemboweled, eaten, ripped into pieces or even all of the above. These scenes are certainly nasty, but they aren’t in the movie quite as much as one would like. These films also have scenes of women getting naked and usually raped, often before being killed. Usually it’s normal rape, but sometimes they will be penetrated by a phallic object like a stone dildo. When it comes to rape in these films, the filmmakers never seem sure if they just want to titillate or if they want to disturb the viewer. These scenes always seem to be exist for a cheap way to throw in nudity, but the mud and the murdering that usually follows makes the nudity unappealing. The third trait is the most hated these days even by the most hardcore of genre fans. There are these superfluous inserts of real life animal cruelty, so you’ll see sorts of animals killed and devoured for no other reason than shock value. But these faults aren’t what sinks the genre.
The problem is when there isn’t cannibal or rape action, nothing seems to be happening. THERE ARE AMAZING AND RIVETING SCENES OF…….people standing there……people walking……people talking……and people watching stock footage of animals fighting eachother. Yet these cannibal movies tend to age well, because no one remembers the downtime. What can I remember about “Cannibal Ferox”? A girl has hooks inserted into her breasts and she is HUNG by them. I also remember a castration. That’s because everything else was soooo boring and padded. Yet people only remember those two stand-out scenes, so it's often remembered fondly for them. Even “Cannibal Holocaust”, the most iconic and probably best of these movies is rather padded out with its pacing. That is why I think the Italian Cannibal genre sucks and why I think its fans are duped into thinking they’re entertaining. They remember the good, which accounts for 5% of the movie, but forget the bad because it's that boring.
“Eaten Alive” works better than most because in contrast to most of these movies, something always seems to be happening. Granted, these happenings are often poorly realized but…..at least stuff is happening. You’ll have our main characters being confronted by a Cobra, having to survive a crappy alligator attack, cannibal attacks, attacks from the cult members…….This means there is very little downtime. Granted, it’s not especially exciting because most of these confrontations are kind of lame, but I’d take that over people just standing around. It also helps that the acting is pretty good and Robert Kerman is awesome as our badass. He pulls off a really cool helicopter stunt at the end and always seems like the real deal. I love it when he punches Sheila out cold so she doesn’t have to witness something terrible. It's so sudden yet understandable that it's both funny yet kind of realistic. It’s too bad Sheila becomes more and more annoying as time goes on and really is at fault for any misfortune suffered on anyone in this film.
Umberto Lenzi, who apparently has talent when it comes to “Dirty Harry”-esque films but is only remembered for the so bad-it’s good “Nightmare City”, shows some of his abilities here. The scene where two women are literally eaten alive is unsettling due to some surprisingly decent acting. The girls are in pain at first, but then go into shock. It was pretty effective. There is also some nice camerawork and good cinematography. On the downside though, the gore effects get cheaper and cheaper until it hits a new low by using stock footage from “Jungle Holocaust”. It actually uses stock footage from other movies too, but I haven’t seen them, whereas the “Jungle Holocaust” footage is noticeable due the change in film stock quality as well as the cannibals suddenly multiplying and losing their face paint…..It’s funny on one hand, but the “Jungle Holocaust” scene used happens to be one of the most disgusting scenes ever so I couldn’t bring myself to laugh.
“Eaten Alive” is not a movie I’d recommend unless you’re a fan of Italian Cannibal films. If the concept interests you, watch “Cannibal Holocaust” or “Jungle Holocaust” and work your way down. “Eaten Alive” might be shoddy compared to the genres more known films, but I was never bored either. As I said, in a genre where nothing seems to happen outside of its few sequences of rape and gore, it was nice to see crap actually happening…..and yes, most of what is happening is crap, but for this, the film was almost enjoyable……almost.
Violence: Rated NC-17 worthy I guess…..While often cheap, it is pretty gross.
Nudity: There are two traditional rape scenes, a scene where a lady is raped with a dildo and a scene where a widow has sex with her three brother-in-law’s on top of her dead husbands ashes. Stay classy, Italy. As always, there’s a lot of nudity but I always find it to be more awkward and numbing than arousing.
Overall: “Eaten Alive” is probably the most entertaining of Italian cannibal films, if that means anything. That doesn't say too much though.
2/4 Stars
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