BY TIM GREAVES

Not to be mistaken for the cannibal monstrosity from Umberto Lenzi with which it shares its title, Eaten Alive is a 1976 tale of terror set in the Louisiana swamps and was directed by Tobe Hooper in the wake of his phenomenal success with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre two years earlier. From the outset Eaten Alive shares its predecessor's mien of ill ease (though not to such stomach-tightening effect), but little of its wicked humour. Indeed it's an all-round far crueller film and positively bubbles over with bloodshed.

Producer Mardi Rustam – who also wrote the story with colleague Alvin L Fast, TCSM's Kim Henkel then adapting it for the screen – was aiming to ride the tidal wave of Jaws' success; what the results lacked in quality (certainly if Rustam felt truly inspired by Spielberg’s film) was voraciously compensated for with lashings of cheap thrills and squalid chills.

The story kicks off with a very fresh-faced Robert Englund attempting to abuse 'the new girl' in a grimy brothel. Immediately deciding that prostitution isn't for her, the young lass packs her bags and sets off on foot into the night. But it's very much a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ when she stumbles across the remote Starlight Hotel and its creepy proprietor Judd (Neville Brand); after attempting to assault her, he prongs her to death on the tines of a pitchfork and feeds her corpse to the huge crocodile he keeps in an enclosure in the back yard. It’s a brutal and extremely graphic sequence but one via which Hooper adeptly alerts the audience that he's upped the ante to deliver something rather more visceral then he did with TCSM (which for all its notoriety is a largely bloodless affair, functioning primarily on a psychological level). The rest of the movie’s runtime pivots on Judd serving up hotel guests as crocodile chow for no discernible reason beyond the fact he's mad as...well, as a box of baby crocs.

Given the unbridled success of Hooper's earlier film, it's no surprise that Eaten Alive is often given short shrift and indeed it is inferior, mainly due to sluggish pacing and the fact it was shot in its entirety on a soundstage; although the hotel exteriors –wreathed in swirling mist and bathed in a quease-inducing red glow – have an appealingly stylised look, it's also painfully obvious one is looking at a studio-bound set, replete with the tell-tale hollow sound resulting when interiors feebly posture as exteriors. However, if you can look past this handicap, and claustrophobic dread coupled with sleaze by the bucketful float your boat, then there's plenty on offer here to keep you entertained.

The cast alone is worth tuning in for. Complementing Brand's frenetic turn as the maniac hotel manager there are fun appearances from legends Mel Ferrer (whose career had certainly seen better days) and Addams Family icon Carolyn Jones (almost unrecognisable as the decrepit Madam of a brothel). Also on hand are Stuart Whitman as a local sheriff oblivious to the carnage being perpetrated on his patch and TCSM's leading lady Marilyn Burns, who fortuitously discards her frightful wig early on but still ends up bound and gagged by our resident psychopath... the poor girl didn't have a lot of luck in Hooper's films, did she? There's also a bizarre turn from William Finley as a disgustingly sweaty guest with a penchant for barking like a dog, giving Brand strong competition in the most deranged character stakes.

Alternatively lurking under titles such as Horror Hotel, Starlight Slaughter and Legend of the Bayou, when Eaten Alive was issued in the UK on VHS in the early 80s under the moniker Death Trap it immediately drew unfortunate attention that earned it a place among the infamous 'video nasties' and it was withdrawn from circulation. Previous DVD releases have reportedly been pretty much substandard across the board (although I haven't seen any of them to be able to comment fairly). But one thing's for sure: Arrow's new uncut Blu-ray/DVD combination package is anything but substandard, in fact it's absolutely terrific, doing Robert Caramico's stylish cinematography more fitting a service than one could have ever imagined possible. 

As if such a superior, uncut presentation of the film alone doesn't make this one a worthwhile purchase, Arrow has bundled in an impressive collection of sweeteners. There are new interviews with Tobe Hooper (who also appears in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it introduction tagged onto the start of the movie), supporting actress Janus Blythe and make-up artist Craig Reardon, as well as older ones with Hooper, Robert Englund and Marilyn Burns. Mardi Rustam provides an informative commentary and there's also a 20-something minute featurette that delves into the life of the Texas bar owner upon who the film is loosely based, as well as a healthy selection of trailers, radio and TV spots, plus a gallery of poster art and lurid lobby cards. A final gem appears in the form of a gallery of original 'comment cards', collected from attendees at a preview screening of the film back in 1976, with the incentive for filling them out being a reward for the best 'new title' suggestion. Most of the remarks are pretty uncharitable, with an amusing standout being the one on which the viewer sarcastically requests to be informed of any subsequent title change so that he/she doesn't inadvertently go to see it again!