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The fact that all of this and this side of Freddie was sidestepped or completely excised from the extraordinarily mediocre film they made is a significant part of why the film is so extremely mediocre.
Can't bring myself to even watch it. Maybe one day, but I know I'll be annoyed.
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Victim of The Night
Can't bring myself to even watch it. Maybe one day, but I know I'll be annoyed.
You will be. It rearranges all the things that really did happen to make the story more dramatic and then sidesteps almost all of his lifestyle except like one scene to paint it as the obligatory "lost in excess" low-moment and then really the whole thing is just paint-by-numbers. It's pretty poor.




This is what did it for me (or rather to me) at age 8. In order to get to my room, which was at the end of the hallway, I had to pass a seldom-used living room with a large chair facing the door. I was convinced that I was going to look in there one day and find Geoffrey Lewis whispering "Looook at meeee...."



Victim of The Night
Something more to add to our October Playlist, here is an old favorite. Because Evil is an exact science.




Holy ****, he really wore that after 1975?!!!
Some styles transcend time.

My son (who, to be fair, was 7 at the time) was convinced that he was actually a robot.



The fact that all of this and this side of Freddie was sidestepped or completely excised from the extraordinarily mediocre film they made is a significant part of why the film is so extremely mediocre.
If someone made a film that was just a recreation of this party it would be the truest Freddie Mercury biopic ever.



Victim of The Night

Well, I haven’t seen this now in about 13 or 14 years. I really, really dug it when I saw it then on TCM Underground on a Friday night and introduced by Rob Zombie. I figured it wasn’t as good as I remembered so I never went back. And I was both right and wrong. The movie has its good and bad and ultimately the viewer will have to decide which path they feel taken down when it's all over. Because it did not start well for me...
For starters, I guess I’ve just become a lot more sensitive to violence against women as I’ve aged and was really taken aback by the level/intensity of it on-screen, particularly in the beginning of the film. I was turned off enough that I wasn’t sure if I was gonna make it and started to drift away from the film. Oddly, it is the level/intensity of violence against everybody which ensues that saved the movie for me. While the antagonist clearly has a grudge against women and their sexuality, he also has a grudge against men who engage in sexual activity, as well as a grudge against just about anybody around, period. So, while the violence against women is stark and jarring, it doesn’t feel like it's the only thing, though when the camera does leer over unnecessarily nude major female characters later in the film there is a heightened discomfort. (Jeez, I remember when I was young and didn't care why a woman was naked as long as she was. Man, have I changed. Or aged. Or just grown up.)
Continuing in the negative column, I have to say that this movie is heavily padded. Heavily. Like, I would accept any number from 10 to fully 20 minutes of the run-time being excised if someone felt those numbers were warranted. I certainly feel the film would have been sharper and more exciting if anywhere from 5-8 minutes were shaved out.
But really, that’s kinda all the negatives.
While there is some stretching of credulity that the police (and Animal Control) wouldn’t have descended on the Starlight Motel a long time ago if this film (which seems to take place entirely in one night though I have seen some say otherwise) doesn't represent the most atypical night in the establishment’s history, ultimately this is a movie about a psychopath with a massive African crocodile for a pet and that’s good for a lot of faith and goodwill. Particularly, when the psychopath is pretty credible, which he is and, surprisingly for 1976 and this budget, so is the crocodile.
Neville Brand is fairly unnerving as Judd, a deeply disturbed soul who can vacillate between remorse, rationalization, and deadly rage within moments and leave all kind of suffering behind seemingly without realizing the harm he does.


There is some Norman Bates here and certainly a touch of Leatherface as well, but there are other complicated killers mixed in here too. As well as a bit of Jaws, though not from Neville Brand. There's a fun scene that's lifted almost directly from Spielberg's shark opus.
Other standouts include Robert Englund 8 years before he became one of the biggest Horror icons ever in A Nightmare On Elm Street (and you can see real talent and a sinister quality here), Carolyn Jones 10 years after embodying Chas Addams’ Morticia in The Addams Family (and she’s game and funny), Marilyn Burns two years after running screaming from Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (still screaming here but not before she’s given a little more to do), and William Finley two years off of terrorizing Paul Williams, Garrett Griffin, and Jessica Harper in The Phantom Of The Paradise.
But, for me, if there’s a star of this show, it is Tobe Hooper. I’m not sure anyone was every better at this kind of thing, between TCM, Eaten Alive, The Funhouse, and to some degree even TCM2, and it will always be one of the great sadnesses of Horror cinema that he was not able to produce more work. There is something about the way he directs these films that elevates them far beyond anything they should be, just as Eaten Alive should be total schlock garbage and yet, when it ended, I couldn’t help but respect it and, yes, actually like it too, despite all my reservations.
It's interesting that this film heavily influenced not only Rob Zombie, as anyone could guess, but even Quentin Tarantino steals, erm, homages a line directly from this film for Kill Bill.
I would say that the hardened Horror/Grindhouse viewer can find a lot to enjoy in this film. But I would also say that anyone could find this film reprehensible and irredeemable as well. I personally ended up feeling, despite my early reaction, that Hooper portrayed a misogynistic psychopath and his pet crocodile (as well as another piece of **** that doesn't think much of women) very realistically, maybe too much for some (even me) but effectively and that that is definitely not the only point of the movie. It's a bit over-long with some dragging scenes but I think the Hooperisms make this worth keeping.



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For starters, I guess I’ve just become a lot more sensitive to violence against women as I’ve aged and was really taken aback by the level/intensity of it on-screen, particularly in the beginning of the film. I was turned off enough that I wasn’t sure if I was gonna make it and started to drift away from the film. Oddly, it is the level/intensity of violence against everybody which ensues that saved the movie for me. While the antagonist clearly has a grudge against women and their sexuality, he also has a grudge against men who engage in sexual activity, as well as a grudge against just about anybody around, period. So, while the violence against women is stark and jarring, it doesn’t feel like it's the only thing, though when the camera does leer over unnecessarily nude major female characters later in the film there is a heightened discomfort. (Jeez, I remember when I was young and didn't care why a woman was naked as long as she was. Man, have I changed. Or aged. Or just grown up.)
And don't forget the child-in-danger element, too. That was the bit that stuck with me.
It's been probably just as long since my last (and only) viewing, but I had mostly positive feelings about it at the time. I was also at a stage where I enjoyed the nasty stuff more than I do now, though. It's been on my shortlist for rewatches for a while.
(I intend to go through all of Hooper's stuff in fact.)



Victim of The Night

This is what did it for me (or rather to me) at age 8. In order to get to my room, which was at the end of the hallway, I had to pass a seldom-used living room with a large chair facing the door. I was convinced that I was going to look in there one day and find Geoffrey Lewis whispering "Looook at meeee...."
Well, Geoffrey Lewis is terrifying.
I mean, he'll take you to see Santa Claus.



I like that Eaten Alive makes the audience squirm a bit. It's a deeply uncomfortable film, not in that obnoxious way that someone like Eli Roth makes uncomfortable films, but something so unapologetically bizarre that it takes you right out of any rational comfort zone. Also one of the best ambient soundtracks in a horror film, which was Hooper's unsung genius, with its tinny country radio interlaced with psychotic peels and pings and cackling crickets. And ol' Judd is quite funny after you get past any kind of sympathetic reflex. It's a shame that the only quote from the film on IMDb is from Buck. It's the dumbest line in the film. Does Buck even hambone, bro? I doubt it.



Victim of The Night
And don't forget the child-in-danger element, too. That was the bit that stuck with me.
It's been probably just as long since my last (and only) viewing, but I had mostly positive feelings about it at the time. I was also at a stage where I enjoyed the nasty stuff more than I do now, though. It's been on my shortlist for rewatches for a while.
(I intend to go through all of Hooper's stuff in fact.)
Ya know, that didn't bother me at all because to me that was part of the terror and it's something I've found to be really effective in a number of stories across different media. It's a particularly taboo thing and crossing that line really ramps up the horror. This country, in particular, is so slavishly dedicated to "protecting the children!" and "making sure my kids have everything I didn't have" and all that ****, in such stark contrast to how children used to be raised, that I kind of enjoy when horror-makers throw the non-contributing little bastards to the wolves a bit. And not because I have any particular grudge against children (though teenagers and college-age kids can **** right off), but I do against their parents, so I'm fine if they squirm some.
But, more to the point, it's a particularly effective transgression because it's so taboo. When we talked about 'Salem's Lot, one of the things that made it so controversial (and it was) in its day and again scared the hell out of people when the TV-movie came out (even though it was so watered down), was that the villains went for the children first. And then, very quickly, the children become villains too, and ruthless, deadly, evil ones. The parts I was reading just last night are chilling because of what happens to the children of 'Salem's Lot and the gut-wrenching effect that has on their parents and the town in general. It's really, really powerful, and no one has ever even tried to refute that 'Salem's Lot was largely empowered by this device just as Interview With The Vampire was when Anne Rice copied King's use of it.
In the context of this film, the child was just another victim to the killer, but her danger really amps up the stakes and the taboo-factor for the viewer because the risk to innocence is so frightening to us.
In a way that the violence against a woman, while repellent, doesn't because at least she's an adult.

And now that I re-read your post, I think I misunderstood it on first read. So I agree with what you posted but I'm gonna leave this here because I think it's an interesting point.

Also, The Funhouse isn't particularly nice to its female protagonist but in that case it is actually the point of the film, something we can talk about later if you watch it. This shot always summed up the film for me:




It took me a second viewing to really appreciate Eaten Alive. Also, didn't help my first experience was on a washed out VHS dub, played on a television with about a ten inch screen.



It's far beneath the stature of TCM (obviously) but it is a nice distant cousin to it. Tobe Hooper could be really good while he was still focusing on sweat and grime and the lowlifes that rise up from that.