Eaten Alive!
Eaten Alive!
| 25 October 1985 (USA)
Eaten Alive! Trailers

A woman's search for her missing sister leads her to the jungles of New Guinea, where she and an expatriate guide encounter a cult leader and flesh-hungry natives.

Reviews
2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!
Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Sandcooler "Eaten Alive!" is a pretty pedestrian cannibal movie, assuming that such a thing even exists. Writer/director Umberto Lenzi definitely seems competent enough around a camera, but there are just no new ideas whatsoever in this one. Every set piece Lenzi gives us looks like it has been deleted from better movies. Watching bunches of angry natives eating rich white people will always be disturbing to some level, but this one doesn't even come close to the gripping atmosphere of say, "Cannibal Holocaust" (to name the obvious example). It isn't completely without merits though. Me Me Lai clearly hadn't gotten any less hot since she played the exact same role in "Lost Cannibal World" (i.e. fake-breasted tribe girl), so it has the eye-candy factor going for it. The cinematography is also breath-takingly beautiful, though I don't think there are many directors who can shoot ugly scenes in a jungle (without underestimating Bruno Mattei). And lastly: the cult storyline is a bit obnoxious and gets waaaaaaaaay too much screen time, but it does provide us with a great performance by genre regular Ivan Rassimov. This dude has got to be the Vincent Price of cannibal flicks, really hammy but really fun. Overall "Eaten Alive!" is watchable, but only if you're really into the genre.
Michael A. Martinez This is not so much a film as it is a clip-show "best of" reel with about 60 minutes of original footage to fill in the gaps. Most of this film was shot in Sri Lanka with a few (quite obvious) sections shot in southern Italy and a few completely gratuitous New York scenes thrown in to try to pass the film off as American. Mel Ferrer makes a completely pointless cameo appearance as a professor who gets to interact with two porn actors playing cops (the poor guy!).Lenzi is usually a great director, but he clearly was not on his A-game with this Cannibal turkey. Not one scene goes by without something completely laughable happening. I'll give you a few examples.A) one scene showing Mel Ferrer entering a police station features his voice dubbed by another actor! Ferrer then can be heard with his actual voice moments later! B) Ferrer's audio is quite obviously recorded practically, while the other actors in the scene with him are dubbed. Jarringly obvious shift in quality.C) shamelessly over-acting police-man saying "WHAT?".D) a scene where a Sri Lankan (well this movie takes place in New Guinea though these people don't look it at all) allows an alligator to effortlessly chomp his dangling arm off. This scene gets double the embarrassment for actually being culled from another movie! E) when the actors "interact" with the Animal cruelty scenes, it's all just close-ups of them reacting intercut with shots from a different film with different filmstock.F) When Kerman throws a spear at a native (haphazardly), it clumsily falls sideways into the dirt. The next shot shows a screaming native with a spear sticking out of his chest! G) One of the Sri Lankan helicopter pilots (who is dubbed, even) blows his line and they left it in! H) Kerman nonchalantly knocks Agren out with a punch so she doesn't see a gory evisceration.I) whopping continuity error involving a character's body parts magically reattaching after they were eaten.J) said scene includes a woman missing her right leg, with a native seen nearby eating a leg... but with a LEFT foot attached to it! Seriously! The list goes on and on. This film is so riotously daft, yet oddly competent in its staging and cinematography, that it's totally unique in the annals of film. The only other film coming close to the lunacy of this is Lenzi's NIGHTMARE CITY which was far more respectable.This film, at least, is never boring and very accessible to those unfamiliar with bad Italian cinema. Personally I find it funnier than most intentional comedies, which is why it gets such a high rating from me. Whether Lenzi had this in mind or was seriously trying to make a good film is anyone's guess.
Michael_Elliott Eaten Alive! (1980) *** (out of 4)Sheila Morris (Janet Agren) is looking for her missing sister and hires Mark (Robert Kerman) to lead her into the jungle where the police believe the sister is. It turns out that the sister is there in the jungle but is with a religious nut (Ivan Raassimov) who is forming a cult.Umberto Lenzi previously kickstarted the Italian cannibal genre with MAN FROM DEEP RIVER and then Ruggero Deodato took it to the more extreme with both JUNGLE HOLOCAUST and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Many people consider EATEN ALIVE! to be the most disgusting film that the genre ever delivered and in many ways they are probably correct. It's certainly not as well made as some of the other films I mentioned but there's no question that Lenzi clearly wanted to top Deodato in terms of trash and sleaze.The most controversial thing about these Italian cannibal movies is the fact that they featured a lot of animals being killed for real. If that sort of thing bothers you then you're really going to hate this movie as I think there are more animal deaths here than in any of the other films from the genre. There are some ugly killings here so one needs to be warned. With that said, this type of "violence" was expected in films like this and in the end it really adds to the sleaze factor.I've always enjoyed these cannibal movies because to me they are basically action and adventure films. They are cheap "B" movies just like the old Tarzan films were and that's part of the charm. The jungle locations just seems very taboo and you often think that the filmmakers were crazy for filming out there. The settings are perfect and there's certainly a lot of sleaze in the real violence as well as all of the nudity and the graphic fake violence, which does offer up what the title says: people are eaten alive! Kerman and Agren are both good enough to keep you entertained in what's going on. You've got Rassimov turning in a good performance and it's fun seeing Paola Senatore, Me Me Lai and Mel Ferrer in smaller roles. EATEN ALIVE! certainly isn't a masterpiece but it is a good trash picture that offers up what you'd expect in a film like this.
Guardia Again, as in other films dealing with cannibalism, we discover that someone has gone missing deep in a primitive, hostile and wild place. This time (for a change), it's not the Amazon, but rather New Guinea. What can be done about this missing person? What has become of them? Like so many before it, "Eaten Alive" sends it's protagonists alarmingly under-prepared into the jungle.Robert Kerman, a cannibal-film lover's Harrison Ford, takes us again on another adventure through the Green Inferno, (as Deodato might say!). He is a hired-gun (not literally), and is offered US$80,000 to recover Sheila's sister. That's about it, really. Why he is the man for the job we're never really told, but we soon see that he's pretty helpful, if not strangely emotional at points.It's not until things progress through some rather trying dramatic scenes that we finally get to see some hard-core gore. And, I must say, they do not disappoint much. Sure, the make-up effects may be a little basic (I hate when blood looks like paint), but the intention behind the acts of cruelty are really blood-curdling. One scene, where a woman's rib-cage is pried apart like a chicken-breast really is gruesome. Another scene treats a woman's breast like a side of beef - which is a shame because you get used to seeing them throughout countless of lead-up scenes! Musically, this film is mixed. The slower-tempo tracks are really effective, eerie, and catchy. However, the strangely up beat music (a cross of funk and disco) used in the urban scenes is really quite tasteless and confusing. Anyone who has seen Lenzi's other work, ("Cannibal Ferox" for one) will have heard this soundtrack before.There is a startling resemblance to a real event featured heavily in this film. For those who know of the Jonestown Massacre, watching this film will fill you with a severe case of déjà vu. The film's villain, a man called "Jonas", is a direct reference to Brian Jones - the founder of Jonestown in Guyana. The cult-like activity and suicidal tendencies are paralleled within the film significantly. Such details as mention of "outsiders", the drinking of drug-laced water, and overall stigma pervaded by Jonas is strikingly similar. And, without giving too much away, things end remarkably similarly to the real events at Jonestown.Eaten Alive has it's problems, but it is by no means worth ignoring for fans of gore or cannibal films.