Blu-ray Review: EATEN ALIVE! (1980)

The Cannibal sub-genre usually divides the viewer in to one of two camps: horror fans who deem it “necessary” as part of their schooling to watch the gut munchers of the decade from the early ‘70s to early ‘80s, and those who completely stay clear after hearing stories of real life animal mutilation and on screen rape, not to mention an anatomical eye for grisly (and gristly) detail in that uniquely unsubtle, very Italian way. If you choose to wade through the jungle, there are simply no better guides than the denizens at Severin Films, who offer up a superb new disc of Umberto Lenzi’s Eaten Alive! (1980). If you’re new to this fascinating facet of horror, you might as well jump in here – there is no shallow end.

Lenzi kick started the craze with 1972’s Man from Deep River, an unabashed “homage” to A Man Called Horse (1970), the Richard Harris starrer about a British lord who becomes a Sioux warrior after being captured. After various policers, gialli, and the like, Lenzi returned to the jungle ickiness with Eaten Alive! after passing on a semi-sequel to Deep River with two of its stars, Me Me Lai and Ivan Rassimov for 1977’s Jungle Holocaust, which ended up being helmed by Ruggaro Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), keeping the tiki torch grue alive.

This was part of the on going tug of war (some would say animosity) between the two directors, each cannibalizing crew and cast and generally trying to one up each other in their works; Cannibal Holocaust would be released in February, Eaten Alive! in March, and on and on it went. In ’81, Lenzi would make his “definite” statement in the Cannibal Sweepstakes with Cannibal Ferox, but after Deodato’s masterpiece the previous year, it was seen as an afterthought, although gruesome and effective.

So, what of Eaten Alive! then? It certainly ticks all the boxes of the others; animal deaths, rape, and a bad case of the munchies are all present and accounted for. What it has that the others don’t though, to its credit, is a sense of goofy adventure and spectacle that plays as Indiana Jones thrice removed from good taste or particular talent. The story is of course, quite simple: a woman (Janet Agren – Red Sonja) recruits a mercenary (Robert Kerman – Cannibal Holocaust) to find her sister (Paola Senatore – The Killer Reserved Nine Seats) who has joined a Jim Jones-like cult in the jungles of New Guinea, led by the magnetic Jonas (Rassimov). The only thing standing between our heroes and their mission are the hungry locals who surround the compound, eager to gobble up any interlopers in their neighborhood. Will they make it back to New York to hear more tribal exposition from special one-day hire guest star Mel Ferrer, or will they be high class food for the locals?

Look, nothing tops Cannibal Holocaust for social commentary and storytelling; it’s genuinely chilling and repellent in equal measure. The rest lean much more on the repellent. If you tap your inner editor and fast forward through multiple scenes of animal death and rape (poor Me Me Lai doesn’t deserve this), Eaten Alive! is the most enjoyable of them all, a spirited adventure tale with ludicrous action scenes and overripe dialogue that moves at an impressive clip. It’s not good, per se, even divorced from the ugliness, but it is entertaining. It really comes down to how much despair the viewer is willing to endure to find that pleasure.

Making it all the more palatable and fascinating is Severin Films’ uncensored disc with an HD scan of, I’m assuming, an original print; there are scratches and dirt, cigarette burns, and would you have it any other way? This is as clean as it should be while retaining a bit of grime for full effect. The colors really pop, especially when we get to Jonas’ camp and his loopy band of candy-clothed followers. Severin always has the scholar in mind, and this disc does not disappoint: a new-ish interview with Lenzi, as well as production designer Antonello Geleng; archived interviews with Rassimov and Kerman, and a 2013 Q & A with Lenzi from the U.K.’s Festival of Fantastic Films. But the carnivorous crown goes to an amazing feature length doc entitled Me Me Lai Bites Back, a very sympathetic take on her many Cannibal films, why she left the business, and how she was prodded by her daughter to return to the spotlight for a bow in front of her many admirers. This is not only a detailed and warm look at her life, but doubles as a terrific history lesson on a corner of horror that many people are wary of peeking in on.

Perhaps there’s a third camp for Cannibal films; horror lovers who not only find the sub-genre fascinating and repulsive, but also, in their purely horrific moments detached from the cynical and sleazy, find them to be pulpy fun. And perhaps that’s where I reside. It’s safe to say that Severin Films’ Eaten Alive! has you covered no matter where you dwell.

Movie Score: 3/5, Disc Score: 4.5/5