EATEN ALIVE ! 1976

Good time 'ol sweaty bayou horror from Tobe Hooper featuring a mumbling & 

psychotic Neville Brand along with a giant man-eating croc and Roberta Collins !!

*After a bit of a break (spent mostly sitting around watching movies !), I'll be back to regular posting here and reading my fellow bloggers' posts. Thanks to everyone for sticking around and thanks & welcome to my new followers !*

"Meet the maniac and his friend...Together they make they make

 the greatest duo in the history of mass slaughter...."

"You Check In Alive...But Check Out Dead !"

     Tobe Hooper's followup to his 1974 masterpiece THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE touches on the same basic theme (a group of folks stumbling into a claustrophobic isolated location with dire results - a theme Hooper would again explore in 1981's THE FUNHOUSE.), along with the presence of SAW's final girl Marilyn Burns (who once again is put through hell here) and takes the very black comedy that lurked beneath CHAINSAW even more to the forefront. With much of the same feel and atmosphere of CHAINSAW (although here amping up the blood & nudity quota) EATEN ALIVE while not the straight-up drive horror classic of it's predecessor still has much to recommend it. There's an interesting cast comprised of former Hollywood A-listers looking to make the monthly mortgage payment, a couple of familiar and attractive 70's drive-in faces, some nice 70's horror and non-pc content as both a cute pet dog (named Snoopy !) and a precocious little crippled girl are set up as either real or potential victims -  and best of all a totally deranged performance by craggy-faced character actor Neville Brand.
    Brand plays Judd a mumbling and most likely psychotic proprietor of the Starlight Hotel, a ramshackle clapboard establishment nestled over a dank bayou swamp, which is home to a large African crocodile to whom he feeds (sometimes mistakenly - other times on purpose) a seemingly non-stop smorgasbord of victims. We're never given any pretext to how long this has been going or to what Judd's purpose is in doing it. By the looks of various bric-brac (both male & female-oriented - including a creepy mannequin) scattered about his hovel there are clues that it's been going on a while and while it's never specifically addressed there are allusions to Judd's wartime service and impotency (perhaps the two are linked ?) as to his motives.

  

     The film opens with runaway and newbie prostitute Clara (the very wonderful Roberta Collins from THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, DEATH RACE 2000 and THE ROOMMATES) who after refusing to indulge in customer Buck's (a pre-Freddy Krueger Robert Englund) requests is thrown out of the "home" by "Madame" Miss Hattie (an almost unrecognizable Carolyn Jones from THE ADDAMS FAMILY under a ton of grey greasepaint). Trudging down the road she checks into Judd's hotel for the night and with the expected result being an encounter with the croc (and the homicidal Judd).
      Soon more potential croc and/or Judd fodder (seems Judd is pretty handy with a sickle) shows up in the form of Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer) and his daughter Libby (the very beautiful Crystin Sinclaire aka Lynda/Linda Gold from CAGED HEAT, RUBY and HUSTLER SQUAD) who are the father and sister of runaway (and ex-prostitute and now croc lunch meat Roberta Collins) and are in the process of trying to locate her. Also arriving is a dysfunctional family consisting of creepy father William Finley (SISTERS and PHANTOM OF PARADISE) and mother Marilyn Burns (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and HELTER SKELTER - here sporting a black perm wig) and their spunky kid played by Kyle Richards (HALLOWEEN). Stuart Whitman from DEMONOID : MESSENGER OF DEATH and GUYANA :CULT OF THE DAMNED (and who was just beginning to be quite a fixture in 70's low budget exploitation) is the somewhat dim bulb local sheriff.
      The presence of a huge Nile crocodile loose in swamps of the U.S. is explained by Judd having a mangy "zoo" as a tourist attraction on the porch of his hotel (early in the film there's a grim scene as we see a small monkey knell over and die with the small girl discovering the body) with the croc being brought back from Africa by a friend and subsequently let loose. Most everybody will quickly surmise how the thing plays out and the plot seems simply there to set up various victims as they rather randomly show up at the hotel (the basic story is straight out of a 1950's EC horror comic).

     The inside studio shooting locations add a cramped claustrophobic atmosphere (along with swirling fog and the constant buzz of insects) which actually helps immensely and Hooper along with cinematographer Robert Caramico (LEMORA : A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL) uses the opportunity to create some dreamlike lighting effects including a hellish red tint that looms over some sequences. Hooper also seems to revel in the grungier aspects of the movie as one the first shots we see is a close-up of Robert Englund's blue jeans crotch followed by Roberta Collin's breasts. As mentioned  the sequence with the small girl being pursued under the hotel all the while being menaced by rats, Judd and the croc is a highlight (along with the fate of her small dog !). Much like the shark in JAWS, the huge rubber mechanical crocodile caused many problems during shooting and ended being mostly seen gliding through the water or quickly glimpsed as it shoots out of the water to grab the wildly flailing victims.
     The film would go out under various titles including DEATHTRAP, HORROR HOTEL, and STARLIGHT SLAUGHTER. The production was somewhat troubled as Hooper squabbled with the producers on the tone of the climax with a result being cinematographer Caramico shot some footage that was later added to the film. The entire cast is quite good with Whitman and Ferrer both lending a some old-time Hollywood gravitas to the proceedings and Brand (a highly decorated WWII vet) is a hoot here - alternately scary and darkly humorous as he mumbles and paces about, all the while puttering around the dilapidated hotel.

      Roberta Collins was always a welcome addition to the 70's drive-in cinema and makes the most of her small (but important) role in the film's opening sequences. She appeared in numerous films including the classics THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, CAGED HEAT, THE ROOMMATES,  DEATH RACE 2000 and the interesting THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (just released by Arrow as part of their American Horror Project box set), roller-skated alongside Claudia Jennings in UNHOLY ROLLERS, showed up in Gordon Park's THREE THE HARD WAY (playing Jim Brown's gal Friday !) and the criminally underseen SPEED TRAP (which really cries out for a DVD release). She sadly passed away in 2008.
      Slender, willowy blond Crystin Sinclaire (who supplies some requisite nudity here) appeared with Roberta in Jonathan Demme's CAGED HEAT along with the Filipino female style DIRTY DOZEN inspired THE HUSTLER SQUAD (aka THE DIRTY HALF DOZEN) and DIRTY O'NEILL. Like many a 70's drive-in/TV actress she faded from view as the 80's dawned.
       EATEN ALIVE is based upon the real life Joe Ball, the so called "Butcher of Elmendrof ", who lived in Texas during the 1930's and had several wives and/or girlfriends disappear while working as waitresses at his roadhouse (which happened to have a live alligator pit out back !!).

ALL ABOVE SCREEN CAPS ARE TAKEN FROM THE ARROW Blu-Ray

   Roberta Collins  Nov. 17 1944 -  Aug. 16 2008

            

Made for T.V. Manson Family - HELTER SKELTER 1976

 

      One of the more seminal and unsettling made for T.V. movie events of the 1970’s HELTER SKELTER is probably best known today for the career defining (or career killing some might say) performance by Steve Railsback as Charles Manson. Originally broadcast in two parts (neatly broken up into the investigation and trial) by NBC on April 1 & 2 1976, it drew a 36.5 rating which makes it about the 16th most popular movie ever shown on network television. As it was broadcast only seven years after the actual events, for a time NBC considered not running it in the Los Angeles viewing area.

    A factual re-telling of the infamous murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and his hippie “family” in Los Angeles during the late summer of 1969, it was based upon the bestselling book by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. In spite of its obvious TV origins that pop up glaringly at some points it’s still surprising to see when watching it today straight thru how what is basically a police and later courtroom procedural movie can hold ones interest for 194 minutes. As to be expected it concentrates more on the prosecution side of things and their efforts to bring a case against Manson and his followers while sorting out the wildly diverging motives (which are still debated to this day).

    The film starts off kind off oddly with Bugliosi (George DiCenzo) addressing the viewing audience directly with a brief preface concerning the case. DiCenzo’s narration continues throughout the rest of the film and does serve a purpose (along with overheard TV newscasts) of filling in various details such as brief background on the victims and the various members of the Manson Family along with some smaller plot points instead of wasting dialogue and running time explaining them. It then follows the timeline of events as laid out the book fairly closely as it starts off immediately with the murders, which although not shown there are quick glimpses of the bloody aftermath and later during the trial testimony there are flashbacks shown that while not overtly gory do still back a punch. Looking back on this it still seems pretty amazing what the filmmakers were able get away with (1970's network television wise) on this.
    Although we do go back to it at certain points, the police investigation is dispensed with pretty quickly as we mostly just have a few scenes of the detectives standing around talking in the squad room and the movie seems more interested in pointing out the errors made by the police as far as mislaying evidence and the separate jurisdictions failing initially to connect the various murders. The film does an admirable job of keeping the various characters and locations cohesive enough to follow (although for those not overtly familiar with the actual case it might get kind of confusing as the plot bounces back & forth between locations and characters are introduced and then disappear). Plus anyone with knowledge of the basic history of the case might be also be confused as some of the names of the family members have been changed (except for a few instances basically it seems that everyone who was not charged at the time with a crime refused to have their real name used).

    As with most TV movies the acting is pretty much all over the map with Railsback’s performance naturally taking front & center with his creepily intense persona (there are instances where he doesn’t blink for what seems like whole minutes) and a performance that for better or worse would loom over his future portrayals and is pretty much the yardstick by which all future portrayals of Manson would be measured against. He brought the same slightly brink of insanity twitchiness to 1980’s THE STUNTMAN (where he also showed some vulnerability, but was upstaged by Peter O’Toole’s maniacal slightly bonkers director) and LIFEFORCE from 1985 - or Charles Manson meets naked space vampires (actually I love LIFEFORCE).
   As far as the Manson girls are concerned Nancy Wolfe is excellent as Susan Atkins and in any other film probably would have got noticed more (she dropped out of sight for about 20 years soon after HELTER SKELTER) and Cathy Paine as a scenery chewing Leslie Van Houten looks more wild eyed then Railsback’s Manson most times. Busy T.V. actress Christina Hart plays Patricia Krenwinkel and oddly enough most times looks like she stepped off the cover of VOGUE magazine. And hey look, there's TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE alumnus Marilyn Burns as Linda Kasabian ! DiCenzo as Bugliosi is fairly stiff in the role, but does bring a single minded doggedness along with being the face & voice of the "The Establishment". The rest of the cast is filled with some familiar TV faces including stuntman and tough guy Roy Jenson (it’s amazing how many things he shows up in) from HARPER and CHINATOWN and in a few years he would battle a disembodied hand along with Samantha Eggar in DEMONOID : MESSENGER OF DEATH

   The film was shot on location in the actual house for the LaBianca murder sequence with another house filling in for the Polanski residence and even more bizarrely the L.A. Police Dept. loaned out the actual car used to transport the murderers to their two nights carnage for use in the movie. The Spahn Ranch location (as by this time the real one had burned down) is that vastly familiar western/corrugated warehouse back lot setting that CHARLIE'S ANGELS, ADAM-12, THE BRADY BUNCH among others all showed up on (along with countless westerns naturally).
   With its combination of murder,drugs, satanism, sex and hippies along with rock & Hollywood royalty the Manson story has fascinated filmmakers with the Academy Award nominated documentary MANSON appearing in 1973 and before that from 1971 was THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED and SWEET SAVIOR (starring former teen heartthrob Troy Donahue as messiah-like killer) with both while not specifically about the actual murder are obviously influenced. Plus there's the very weird THE CULT (AKA THE MANSON MURDERS) from the early 70's with its somewhat mysterious origins. HELTER SKELTER was first major attempt at a dramatic retelling on the events and was remade in 2004 (with more emphasis on Manson himself & the family).
   There has been numerous projects rumoured in recent years with both Oliver Stone and David Fincher's name being attached at various times and more recently Rob Zombie. In addition there's a low budget one in the works titled THE MANSON GIRLS and for a real decent into hell check out Jim Van Beeber's THE MANSON FAMILY.

   HELTER SKELTER was re-edited into a feature length movie (with a bit more violence added) and released theatrically overseas. Supposedly there's a couple of F-bombs still lurking around in the T.V. version (available on DVD), but I've never been able to catch them. For anyone wanting to delve a little deeper into this after reading HELTER SKELTER, I highly recommend Ed Saunders THE FAMILY (which he periodically updates & reprints).