Eaten Alive

Eaten Alive (1976)

Timing: 1:31 (91 min)

5.5/10
198

5.659/10
1457

5.5/10
9800

All about film

Video 0

Photo 44

Actors and characters

Release date

1976-12-25

Country

United States

Production

Mars Production Corporation

Genre

Horror, Thriller

Budget

$520 000

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Tobe Hooper

Actors

Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Robert Englund, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Crystin Sinclaire
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Kim Henkel

Producer

Mardi Rustam, Mohammed Rustam

Operator

Robert Caramico

Composer

Artist

Audition

Edward R. Morse

Editing

Michael Brown
All team (16)

• A very loose adaptation of the story of Joe Ball (also known as the “Alligator Man” and the “Bluebeard of South Texas”), who owned a bar with live alligators in Texas in the 1930s. Ball killed several women during his lifetime. Rumors circulated that he disposed of the bodies by feeding them to the alligators, but no one was ever able to prove that the remains found in the pool were human. On September 24, 1938, Ball committed suicide when police came to arrest him in connection with these murders.
• A five-meter mechanical model of a Nile crocodile was created for filming the scenes with the monster in the water. A model only one meter in size was used for filming the crocodile under the motel. The larger model later deteriorated when it was left in an artificial pool for a long time and water got inside, forcing it to be disassembled for drying, which resulted in several days of downtime.
• The entire film was shot on the soundstages at “Raleigh Studios” in Hollywood, which featured a large pool suitable for filming, specifically the swamp. Filming on soundstages rather than on location gave the film a “surreal atmosphere” (as director Tobe Hooper put it). The director himself had to leave the project shortly before completion due to disagreements with the producers.
• Initially, it was planned to shoot some scenes on location in Amarillo, Texas, but these plans did not come to fruition due to financial considerations, and the entire film was shot on the studio’s soundstages due to budget constraints.
• Fog in the swamp scenes was created using dry ice, as was done in the early days of cinema when shooting horror films on the soundstages of Hollywood studios.