MovieChat Forums > Eaten Alive (1977) Discussion > One of the worst movies ever made.

One of the worst movies ever made.

posted 16 years ago by br0ck
15 replies | jump to latest

Seriously.. this is quite possibly one of the worst movies ever. It is pointless, boring, cheesy, has no plot, explains nothing throughout it, and was just about the biggest waste of an hour and a half i've ever spent in my life. I honestly don't know how Englund managed to keep his acting career going after appearing in this..this movie is so pointless in every way, they spent 5-10 minutes introducing a character just to have them killed off moments later, you spend a good 5 minutes of the movie just seeing a crazy guy sitting on a couch or a woman bouncing up and down tied to a bed.. or 5 minutes of a girl crawling around under a porch.. now thats some compelling filmmaking! they show you scenes in bars and stuff that have nothing to do with the plot of the movie.. I honestly don't know what they were going for here, i'm usually a fan of 70s horror but this is just terrible in every way.

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[–] xgreatghostsx 16 years ago

I beg to differ. I think this was and is a worthy follow up to TCM. Yes the plot is paper thin, but atmosphere makes up for that. Great color schemes, great music, not to mention a great perfromance by Neville Brand. And nevermind what I said before about the plot, it's not a great plot but it works for what the movie is. And what it is, is a great little drive-in flick. I think Tobe Hooper did a fantastic job with all the pressure that was on him to do a follow up to TCM. I mean really, how do you follow that movie? Is it as great as TCM, no. But few films are.

[–] latherzap 16 years ago

Yeah, they spent too much time with the girl crawling under the porch. But I dig this movie.

You want terrible and boring? Try Humongous or Blood Beach. Now *those* are some sucky boring movies.

[–] alucardvenom 10 years ago

You want terrible and boring? Try Humongous or Blood Beach. Now *those* are some sucky boring movies.

You'll lucky if you manage to see what the heck is going on onscreen in Humongous.

Talk about boring? How about Hell Night? Frozen Scream? Those are some bad slashers and boring on top of that.

@OP: You haven't seen The Mangler I guess? Eaten Alive is masterpiece compared to that. How could Tobe Hooper come from TCM and Poltergeist to The Mangler and Mortuary is beyond anyone's wild guess.

[–] mptnla 16 years ago

God I thought it sucked! The weird red lighting and a hotel in the middle of nowhere which seems to get a heck of a lot of guests in the middle of the night. Now what threw me was -- wasn't that a cleaned up Neville Brand also playing the shy cowboy that was being pushed around in the bar? That led me to believe this was going to be some king of evil twin subplot which never happened. And what was the point of that scene anyway? I'm glad I saw this movie -- sometimes I like trainwrecks -- but I could never sit through this movie again.

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[–] hannahrose313 9 years ago

I know this is like, 7 years later...
But in case you're still wondering, no, the cowboy in the bar looked nothing like Brand. He played a pivotal part in the 1975 music film "Nashville".

[–] sillyspaghetti 13 years ago

In my opinion, it is THE WORST movie that I have ever seen. It was just cheap and nasty. It wasn't even cheesy enough to be entertaining in my opinion. But that's just me. And no offense towards anyone who does like it.

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[–] Ultimex_Varptuner 13 years ago

One of the criticisms of the film mentioned here is fair enough, if you ask me. Namely that some of the scenes were stupidly enlongated to the point of being annoying (girl crawling under the house, doofus singing to himself etc), but the wierd colour scheme, surreal characterisation and sleazy, chap atmos are, I believe, intentional.

To me these things elevated the film above some of it's weaker moments.

I wouldn't say I loved it. But, I wound up liking it and respecting TH for following up TCM with something so odd.

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[–] torpedoboy4 13 years ago

If by "worst" you actually mean "best" then sure, it's the worst.

[–] ElectricWarlock 12 years ago

You most likely haven't seen anywhere near every movie ever made so you have no basis on which to make that claim.

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[–] JRodFilms 12 years ago

i enjoyed it...but the third act did lack

[–] tali1 12 years ago

If i was generous i would give it 3/10 -along with Motel Hell this is basically utter utter *beep* and just shows Hooper's disgracefully overhyped repuation.
They should have flung Hooper and his writers in to the croc swamp and save everyone the misery of enduring this piss poor movie

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[–] VinnieRattolle 12 years ago

If i was generous i would give it 3/10 -along with Motel Hell this is basically utter utter *beep* and just shows Hooper's disgracefully overhyped repuation.

You seem to be implying Hooper made "Motel Hell," which he did not. If you were trying to make a comparison, there are glaring similarities, but "Motel Hell" is fairly original and a helluva lot of fun if you take it as the big campfest that it is. "Eaten Alive," on the other hand, is relentlessly weird and dreary.

Not that I'm knocking "Eaten Alive," and I would never rank it amongst the worst movies ever made (as a cult movie connoisseur, I've seen SO MUCH worse). While I readily admit the story is paper thin and many scenes drag on endlessly, the film is drooling with atmosphere, there are some decent performances, interesting characters and a completely bizarre cast. Seriously -- Morticia Addams, Freddy Krueger, Lindsay Wallace, Winslow Leach, and Sally Hardesty?! On the grounds of the cast alone, it can hardly rank amongst the worst ever made.

[–] CrazyJim2004 12 years ago

This is nowhere near one of the worst movies.

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[–] IceboxMovies 11 years ago

Technically, it's an impressive movie. But yes, ultimately it's one of Hooper's worst movies; I really got irritated by how so many characters got brought into the movie only to be killed off immediately after we start to learn remotely anything about them. And it was depressing watching Neville Brand work so hard for his performance when his character wasn't even interesting to begin with.

At least with something as underrated as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (which I'll always defend), Hooper protected himself with the medium of satire and aspired to a kind of art. With this film, he was catering to the lowest common denominator.

[–] 11 years ago

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