"Eaten Alive" is yet another gut munching jungle romp, with a few small tweaks to your basic cannibal plot.
A rich southern girl, Sheila (Janet Agren)travels to the jungles of New Guinea (a bit of 8mm film left behind shows footage from rituals in that area) to find her missing sister (Paola Senatore), whom has joined a "pufication sect"/cult led by the junkie Jonas (just in case you couldn't spot the obvious Jonestown reference). To aid her in her search, she hires adventurer for hire/ Vietnam deserter Mark (Robert Kerwin/Richard Bolla).
They find the sect and her sister, but quickly learn all is not as peace and love as it seems, as this is a suicide cult and escaping means crossing a jungle full of...you guessed it...cannibals! Lenzi must've gotten bored and taken up quilting in his off time as the visuals are mostly a patchwork of scenes stolen from other movies, both his own and other directors'("Man From Deep River","Jungle Holocaust").
However anyone who willingly sits down to watch a Lenzi film knows not to expect too much and this is no exception.
The dialog is corny,the lead actress has about as much talent as albinos have tans, and Kerwin is just hamming it up delightfully as one could expect from a porn actor.
However, Jonas (Ivan Rassimov) takes the ham acting cake as the dress wearing, drug using, ritualistic sex practicing cult leader. He really does capture the spirit of the wild eyed junkie prophets who ply their trade on the subway and NYC street corners.
There's plenty of flesh eating gore here, as well as the standard issue of the time animal violence. Several prominent rape scenes, though all of them look too much like cheaply made vintage porn to be disturbing.
Also typical of the sub genre, there's plenty of exposed female flesh in "tribal" costumes and all of the leads at at least somewhat attractive. Cult icon Me Me Lai is particularly easy on the eyes while spending most of the film naked.
Overall it's a classic slice of velveeta and an unintentionally comedic horror romp in assaulting good taste.
I would've rated this equal to Lenzi's other piece of fantastic trash cinema "Cannibal Ferox" but it gets knocked down a peg to 4 stars (1 for Me Me,1 for some really memorable campy dialog, and the other 2 because Robert Kerwin is the king of the cannibal films)due to it's being that damn derivative.
A rich southern girl, Sheila (Janet Agren)travels to the jungles of New Guinea (a bit of 8mm film left behind shows footage from rituals in that area) to find her missing sister (Paola Senatore), whom has joined a "pufication sect"/cult led by the junkie Jonas (just in case you couldn't spot the obvious Jonestown reference). To aid her in her search, she hires adventurer for hire/ Vietnam deserter Mark (Robert Kerwin/Richard Bolla).
They find the sect and her sister, but quickly learn all is not as peace and love as it seems, as this is a suicide cult and escaping means crossing a jungle full of...you guessed it...cannibals! Lenzi must've gotten bored and taken up quilting in his off time as the visuals are mostly a patchwork of scenes stolen from other movies, both his own and other directors'("Man From Deep River","Jungle Holocaust").
However anyone who willingly sits down to watch a Lenzi film knows not to expect too much and this is no exception.
The dialog is corny,the lead actress has about as much talent as albinos have tans, and Kerwin is just hamming it up delightfully as one could expect from a porn actor.
However, Jonas (Ivan Rassimov) takes the ham acting cake as the dress wearing, drug using, ritualistic sex practicing cult leader. He really does capture the spirit of the wild eyed junkie prophets who ply their trade on the subway and NYC street corners.
There's plenty of flesh eating gore here, as well as the standard issue of the time animal violence. Several prominent rape scenes, though all of them look too much like cheaply made vintage porn to be disturbing.
Also typical of the sub genre, there's plenty of exposed female flesh in "tribal" costumes and all of the leads at at least somewhat attractive. Cult icon Me Me Lai is particularly easy on the eyes while spending most of the film naked.
Overall it's a classic slice of velveeta and an unintentionally comedic horror romp in assaulting good taste.
I would've rated this equal to Lenzi's other piece of fantastic trash cinema "Cannibal Ferox" but it gets knocked down a peg to 4 stars (1 for Me Me,1 for some really memorable campy dialog, and the other 2 because Robert Kerwin is the king of the cannibal films)due to it's being that damn derivative.