Review: Eaten Alive! (1980)

(aka Mangiati vivi!, Doomed to Die)
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Starring: Robert Kerman, Janet Agren
Written by: Umberto Lenzi
Music by: Budy Maglione
Country: Italy
Available on: Blu-ray (Severin Films)
IMDb

I have a strange affection for the cannibal cycle of Italian horror movies that permeated the ‘70s and ‘80s. I’m definitely not someone who likes feeling miserable — in fact, I’m almost always in a decent mood. And these Italian cannibal flicks always make me feel so miserable when I watch them, but there’s something alluring about just how damn good they are at harnessing human misery into a 90-minute intraorbital dose of nihilism. They also seem legitimately dangerous, as much for the variety of dangerous wildlife encountered as the flesh-eating natives. Eaten Alive! is Italian director Umberto Lenzi’s second foray into the subgenre, after he started it all with Man from Deep River from 1972 (and he would follow this up immediately with the better-known Cannibal Ferox also in 1980). Eaten Alive! has all the depravity one expects from these things: horribly racist depictions of indigenous cultures, real animal deaths that are absolutely soul-taxing, extremely realistic snuff film levels of gore, rampant nudity, sexual assault and mutilation. There’s also the usual beautiful and exotic scenery and at-times-funky and at-times-ominous score. Robert Kerman, practically cannibal royalty with prominent roles in Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Cannibal Ferox, also stars here. These movies aren’t really designed for anything other than making the audience feel like shit by depicting humanity at its worst. The best of them, such as Cannibal Holocaust, do make an attempt to horrifically illustrate the hubris and imperialism of Western society, leveraging all of that debauchery in service of some kind of message. Eaten Alive! is not one of the best, but it’s a nice weird, mid-tier entry among the likes of Sergio Martino’s Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) and Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977). It tries to do something different by mixing a Jonestown-type cult in the middle of the cannibal mayhem. It has some standout, brutal effects work and pretty great music, but it weaves in B-roll from a lot of other previously shot films, which on one hand is stupid and lame, but on the other hand adds to its insanity. Eaten Alive! isn’t anything approaching essential, but it’s grimier, odder, and a little more story-driven than some of its brethren. If you hate these movies — I totally don’t blame you if you do — then this is going to make you hate them more. But if, like me, you have a sick interest in them, it’ll scratch that nasty itch.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10