Lumsdal
Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
ThedevilChoose
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Leofwine_draca
Umberto Lenzi's madcap jungle caper can't really be called a cannibal film. The cannibals themselves are hardly featured in this film, which concentrates on the activities of a religious cult in the middle of the jungle and the wacko who leads it. This truly crazy film is a mixture of different themes, scenes and rip offs of other films, and to see it is beyond belief. In the end it all comes down to exploitation, and EATEN ALIVE is one of the funniest films that you'll ever see. With poor acting and atrocious dubbing, it's a bad movie fanatic's dream come true. Almost every scene is awash with female nudity, plus plenty of gratuitous violence which the Italians know and love. The cannibal chomp down, when it comes, is rather short and consists of the typical dismembering and beheading. Other than that we're treated to the sight of Robert Kerman running around and killing natives left, right, and centre.The acting will seem poor to a newcomer to this genre, but it's the type I'm fond of: extremely wooden. Kerman is the supposedly macho character, all that is required of him is to lead expeditions and fight off enemies. Janet Agren, the female lead, is blank and expressionless too. The interest comes from Ivan Rassimov, who goes way over the top as a mad sect leader (his character based on the real-life Jim Jones, who lead a similar suicide cult), dressed in robes and eyeliner. He's insane! Other familiar faces pad out the cast, from Me Me Lai (AU PAIR GIRLS) to Mel Ferrer.This film has it all: men running around firing darts, people being drugged, painted gold, committing suicide in a hilarious way, running through the jungle and plenty of violence, although the gore content is kept to a minimum. Lenzi is more interested in the activities of the religious cult he has created. One thing the film has going for it, though, is an exciting ending where Kerman runs towards the helicopter as the cannibals close in behind him. It had me on the edge of my seat anyway. If you're a fan of the Italian exploitation genre of the early '80s, then EATEN ALIVE is indeed the one for you.
anthony-rigoni
If you think Cannibal Holocaust is a bad movie mainly because seven live animals died and women are treated badly, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is no movie that can make my blood boil like molten lava than Umberto Lenzi's Eaten Alive. Don't believe me? Let's take a good, long look at this movie....First of all, the acting. It's like the actors aren't putting any effort into their roles. It's also like Battlefield Earth minus the Klingon look-a-likes with dreadlocks. Second, like Cannibal Holocaust and presumably Jungle 2 Jungle, there are innocent live animals who died during the making of this piece of s---. An example of this is a grotesque scene where a crocodile is skinned alive.... or rather yet, stock footage of a crocodile getting skinned alive. But the worst is yet to come. I maybe no feminist, but there are no strong female characters in this movie at all. They are treated like slaves, beaten, slapped, raped, carved up, beheaded, and, hence the title of this movie, eaten alive.I watched the entire movie and I was absolutely furious by not only how cheesy or corny the acting is, but by how bad women are treated in this movie. I'm surprise feminist organizations didn't come after the director with pitchforks and torches! Can you imagine if they did the same thing to One Piece's female characters? I F------ CAN'T! Bottom Line: Terrible acting, generic music, live animals killed on camera, and negative stereotyping on women are the reasons why you should avoid Eaten Alive like the West Nile Virus. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and show this movie to a local feminist group.
Michael DeZubiria
One IMDb reviewer calls Eaten Alive a passable film for the "cannibal connoisseur." Are there such people? I didn't know. But if you are one of them, hey, have a ball. The rest of you might find this tripe a bit hard to swallow (pun intended), even if, like me, you consider yourself a horror film connoisseur. I have been an avid horror fan for about 15 years now, although I never got around to the cannibal subgenre until a few weeks ago, and I guess I owe my short-lived interest in these groan-inducing movies, strangely enough, to China's total disregard for copyright laws. You see, I bought a two-disc DVD collection of all of Wesley Snipes' films for 20 yuan (about $2.75), which turned out to include Last Cannibal World, Mountain of the Cannibal God, Eaten Alive, Cannibal Holocaust, Next, with Nicholas Cage, and something called Voodoo Lagoon, along with Blade 1-3, in Chinese. Nice.Being a second sequel, I immediately got a sinking feeling when the movie opened with a cannibal in street clothes wandering around major American cities, shooting unsuspecting Americans with poison darts and then scrambling away at full speed. Having run out of ways to keep movie cannibals scary, it seems that now they have made their way to the mainland. Later, you may be shocked to learn that this guy is on a "training exercise." Lock up your daughters! Before long the movie settles into the old missing sister routine, as a young blonde woman named Sheila begins her own investigation of the disappearance of her sister, who looks nothing like her in any way, but she's willing to spend most of the movie naked so I guess that doesn't matter. It seems that, after shooting one of his victims, the hapless cannibal we met early in the movie, not used to big city life, ran into the road and was struck dead by a moving van. The brilliant police force find a mysterious bit of film on him showing Sheila's sister involved in some bizarre ritual behavior, but other than the film, the guy is a complete mystery. As the piteous police chief laments, "we know nothing about him except that he's dead!" Poor guy, he must be getting a headache from all this. I recommend a nap. Luckily, Sheila is the kind of girl who can throw around tens of thousands of dollars like it's nothing in the search for her sister. Perfect for hiring a plucky backwoods guide caricature, since the police are clearly going to be no help.Obviously, nothing new is added to this miniscule sub-genre. Quite the contrary, cannibalism almost seems like a background to a completely different kind of bad movie, about the rescue of a missing person from the dangerous elements. Thickening the plot of that clothesline is not difficult, all you have to do is add in a cartoonish jungle cult of people who follow some guy who calls himself Jonas, who believes in using pain as a way to reunite man with nature, a process they call "purification." Personally, I prefer just peeing outside occasionally.One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Sheila is caught by one of the cult members - an overweight guy who looks like he took a three-day weekend from the office to appear in this movie. As he pulls out his trusty medical kit to give her an injection, he warns her, "If you don't believe in Jonas and purification (through pain), God help you." He then gives her a shot and, when she winces from the tiny pinch, he politely apologizes to her. I sense a true believer in this guy!As far as the gore, there are plenty of nasty sound effects over random shots of animals getting slaughtered and more than enough disgusting footage of women being cut up and eaten alive, so I guess right there the movie lives up to its name. The acting is astonishingly bad, as can be expected, and interestingly enough, the editing is also spectacularly botched but still strangely effective. Unfortunately, I think you have to be able to relate to people who believe in utterly insane cults in order to relate to anyone in the movie. There are plenty of outlandish religious ceremonies that take place, which make it more and more difficult to understand why Sheila's sister decided to turn her back on normal society. I'm all for individualism and doing your own thing, but come ON. After a while the movie descends even further into your basic, run of the mill escape movie, just before we witness the most wildly inappropriate rendition of Glory, Glory Hallelujah in film history. WOW. Note: in this movie, a woman is raped with a severed snake. If you need any more reason never to watch it, seek professional help. Avoid this mess at all costs.
lost-in-limbo
In New York an assassin is knocking off targeted victims with a dart soaked in Cobra venom and while trying to escape, he gets killed in a car accident. This leads to a young lady who heads to New Guinea to find her older sister, after the police discover on the assassin an item that belonged to her missing sister. She and a fellow American guide she hires when she gets there, head out on a journey through the wild wilderness filled exotically dangerous animals and blood thirsty cannibals to reach a purification cult colony led by an sadistically influential and crazy leader. I'm basically a new comer to the sub-genre, which has caught my curiosity in more recent times. I've seen one or two cannibal films, but it has never really struck me until now. Umberto Lenzi's "Eaten Alive" was never really on my hit list either, but I was just craving something different and it just happened to be near by for a nice price. While, it might not be held up in high regards with "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Cannibal Ferox", I found it to be a mildly amusing and reasonable addition to the list. It starts off oddly enough, despite a slow beginning to proceedings and then it finally hits its straps in the closing half. Lenzi added something else to the rancid ingredients. The cannibal element of the story felt more like a supporting part to the religious cult of fanatics who believe in purification. These inserts of the cult group got very silly and tend to drag in the latter scenes. While, the exploitive cannibal feeding and mutilations is primly nasty and sick, it can get quite cheesy and uninspired in its repetitive actions, because its so over-the-top to take seriously. Must love the cannibals' wigs and ever-changing appearances. One question is that do they always happen to be hungry when they encounter someone. Although the animal violence was more often genuine footage. Every now and then it takes some time off the story to look at the animals. Cue in when animals attack by pitting them against each other! Is this suppose to desensitize us to what's about to come? As it seemed more like it was there to pad out the film. Lenzi stacks up some memorably sleazy scenes in very trashy doses. The camera-work has that hectic semi-documentary style that likes its close ups and a kicking soundtrack with a funky rhythm. The unexciting script provides a lot useless chatter and constant ringing of… $80,000. How much was it again? $80,000. Did get a bit on the annoying side. Although, not as much as the atrociously wretched dubbing. Awful it was! From this it's hard to grasp that of the performances, but I guess they were fair. The divine looking Janet Agren and Paola Senatore are acceptable as the two sisters. Robert Kerma makes a decent turn as the hired guide and Ivan Rassimov is strikingly good as the venomous cult leader. Mei Mei Lai appears and Mel Ferrer in a minor role. What's served up on the menu? A hammy cult coot with trashy cannibalistic entertainment slanted on the side.