SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Stephen Abell I've never been a great fan of Tobe Hooper's (I find him pretty average, though I do like quite a few of the movies he's shot) so I was happily surprised to find this was a treat to watch. The thing which I was unprepared for was the stylish way that Hooper directed the movie, full of vivid and startling reds and blues. Not the usual fair for Hooper though it does add an extra element to the atmosphere of the movie, as did the constant twangy country soundtrack about the most depressing things in life.The story about a Motel owner and his crocodile. Though, it's never stated you get the feeling that Motel owner Judd may be a veteran whose seen more than his fair share of action and has returned shell-shocked and schizophrenic, as some of his rantings have this impression. Either way, this man is mentaly broken. When a runaway girl takes a room for the night he get's the idea that she's a hooker who worked at Miss Hattie's place and he doesn't like those types of girls. She ends up being the entree for the crocodile who will be well fed before the end of the night.There's not much to the story and it all takes place in or around the motel, what makes this a really watchable film is the characterisations and the actors and actresses who portray them. In particular, Neville Brand who does a brilliant job with Judd from mannerisms to ticks to different personalities when the voices start speaking to him. He was the right choice for this role and very strong within it. Another strong actress is the beautiful Carolyn Jones (of King Creole and The Addams Family fame), though it's really hard to make her out as Miss Hattie. To be honest, the cast is pretty top-notch and has the likes of a young Robert England, Mel Ferrer, and Stuart Whitman.However, there is one family that turn up at the motel and the dynamic between the mother and father is damn strange, in fact, the father's personality is downright weird. This does deter from the power of the film and it's characters, to the point of severing the link of believability with the audience.Overall though this is a film that I would recommend to everybody who likes a good psychological thriller. It is definitely one to watch with the curtains drawn and the lights turned off.

jackvictore This is my favorite Toby Hooper movie.It feels almost like a live theater experience with all the colorful stage lighting. Or something out of a Halloween haunted house stage craft. A most wonderful style for a horror movie in my opinion. The atmosphere is dank and swampy with old time country music (Is that George Jones I hear?) mixed with moments of erratic synth music and not to mention the out of tune ramblings of a crazy man. If you're into "Campy" movies, I recommend this as something a little more edgy than your typical slasher flick. For a truly unique experience watch this movie when stranded in a small town in a dumpy motel. One of my favorite horror movies. I give it 5 bags of popcorn with extra butter!

Scott LeBrun Tobe Hooper follows up his legendary breakthrough film with this similarly demented saga of an insane hotel proprietor, Judd (Neville Brand), who operates his business in remote rural Texas. Based loosely on a real-life character named Joe Ball, Judd just so happens to be keeping a crocodile as a pet, which stays in a pond next to the hotel. Every so often, if a visitor should upset good ol' Judd, they become crocodile food. Among those that could be on the menu are Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer), an old man searching for his daughter, and a young family that includes William Finley as the father and Marilyn Burns of TCSM as the mother!You know good times are ahead when the first performer to make his entrance is the great Robert Englund, who, before insisting on doing it doggy style with inexperienced whore Clara (Roberta Collins), utters the memorable lines: "My names' Buck. I'm rarin' to *beep*." And so it goes with this glorious bit of cinematic insanity, which features some absolutely amazing, overwhelming atmosphere, intense lighting schemes, and an overall sense of weirdness. Hooper also co-composed the music score and it's decidedly offbeat, featuring a lot of atonal beeping.Brand is hysterical in the role of Judd. Often seen singing or talking to himself, he fully commits to the role of this backwoods boor. Englund is also great fun as the randy, raucous Buck. Finley really lets it rip as the unhinged dad, while Burns once again is required to scream her head off. Also among the cast of familiar faces are a heavily made-up Carolyn Jones in a frumpy character part as a madam, Kyle Richards as the daughter of Finley & Burns, Crystin Sinclaire as the forlorn daughter of Ferrer, the incredibly sexy Janus Blythe as Englunds' gal pal, and David Hayward as a lustful cowboy.If horror fans are looking for a really meaty story, they can look elsewhere. But for those hoping for strangeness and style, they'll get plenty of it. They can hardly fail to notice that this is more explicitly bloody than TCSM, and it's appreciably trashy, too, as Sinclaire and Blythe both show off their breasts. The crocodile created by Bob Mattey (best known as the creator of Bruce for "Jaws" a few years previous) isn't terribly convincing, but this viewer can forgive that aspect in view of the overall entertainment value.Eight out of 10.

Ultimex_Varptuner It's a surprise that Death Trap (Eaten Alive) was the film Tobe Hooper followed up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with as, at first sight, TCM is totally and utterly superior in every way. However, that is not to say the Death Trap is not without it's charm. Albeit a warped, distorted, bizarre charm that leaves you feeling as if you've been watching the film through the bottom of a jam jar… after seven pints of beer.Okay, so right off the film lacks Gunnar Hansen's iconic, brilliantly unveiled antagonist, instead delivering… Judd. He is a mumbling, demented hotelier who looks a bit like a messed up version of my father-in-law, talks stream of consciousness nonsense and at one point sings a painfully elongated rendition of a song so annoying that you will want to murder him yourself. For all that, Judd is an interesting villain when set against the physical power of Leatherface. He doesn't look particularly sinister, almost certainly isn't particularly strong and due to his inability to speak properly, we can only guess at his motives and back story. In some ways these factors makes it more shocking when he lapses into hysterical, jittering psychotic episodes which are usually followed in short order by him feeding his victims to an extremely naff-looking plastic crocodile.On the subject of Judd's victims, this is one area where the film takes a pleasantly surreal turn and sets itself aside from it's peers. The crowd who visit the hotel on what appears to be rather a brisk day for trade are even weirder than Judd himself. We start with a messed up young woman sporting a wig so fake and pathetic looking that it would have stuck out like a sore thumb in an early 80's porno. Then you have the anal-retentive, deep-south John Cleese who comes looking for his estranged Daughter and Robert Englund, looking good as an angry southern hick who's only goal in life seems to be to get a female of the species to indulge him in the love that dare not speak it's name. Next onto TCM's lovely Marilyn Burns wearing, for reasons unknown, yet another really lame looking wig and her daughter, sporting a metal leg brace. But by far the craziest character here and, indeed, the most unhinged man this side of Frank Booth is Roy. This boy, to be fair to him, is a complete and utter raving lunatic who thinks nothing of lapsing into crazed animal impersonations and descriptions of having his eye burned out by his wife in front of his weeping child.Death Trap unfolds on a few scant, cheap and sleazy looking sets, none of it appears to be shot outdoors and all of the proceedings appear murky, often lit with a trashy red hue. These things should not be considered negatives to fans of this kind of cinema (myself included) as the whole thing looks like some ungodly, nightmare 70's theme park gone wrong and the constant soundtrack of either analogue synth bleeps or wailing atonal country and western music give the film a truly evil and otherworldly atmosphere.Personally I love the days of these crude, surreal, trashy films which now seem so far behind us and if the above are to be considered pluses then sadly there must be minuses. For me my single biggest gripe is that some scenes where nothing really happens, play out just too long and too uneventful. The problem here is that Judd's character is established as being so one-dimensional that once we have discovered he is a murderer, there isn't really anywhere else to go other than to show him shambling about being irritating. I guess Tobe Hooper wanted this film to more closely follow the perpetrator, rather than the victims (as in TCM), but with so little psychological meat, it just doesn't work.The overall film is also hindered by the fact that it doesn't gather pace heading towards the climax a la TCM. There is no real feeling of ratcheting up the suspense as Judd's actions get increasingly more risky and threaten to expose him.Tobe Hooper should be applauded for following a runaway indie hit with something that was so different. Can you imagine a writer/director these days under contract to some big shadowy corporation choosing to buck a winning formula and try something completely distinct in style? It simply wouldn't be allowed to happen. Which is why we need to treasure these films and our memories of the times they come from. Because it was a time when challenging, even assaulting the audience was the film maker's first goal and if you left the drive-in after seeing Death Trap feeling like you needed a shower then Tobe had done his job.He did his job.P.S.. I love you Marilyn Chambers.