[Prime Cuts] ‘Eaten Alive’ Was Tobe Hooper’s Spiritual Sequel to ‘Chain Saw’
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Prime Cuts dives head-first into Amazon Prime’s surprisingly replete genre catalog to unearth some tried-and-true classics, forgotten sleepers, and hidden gems, all in the name of giving you something to watch this weekend. Catch ’em before they’re gone.
The motor in the Black & Decker had barely cooled when Tobe Hooper, fresh off the success of his debut hit The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, hopped back into the grimy, dust-laden saddle for the equally outrageous follow-up, Eaten Alive (aka Death Trap, aka Brutes and Savages, aka Horror Hotel, aka Starlight Slaughter), a neon-soaked quasi-Southern Gothic tale about a batshit crazy motel proprietor who feeds his unsuspecting guests to a massive crocodile which he keeps in a swamp alongside the inn. Despite being new to the film business, Hooper knew one thing for sure: when your first movie out of the gate is about a family of cannibals and is titled The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, you either go big or go home on your next picture – and he clearly had no intention of going home.
Eaten Alive doesn’t waste any time setting the sleazy, feel-bad tone: detuned synthesizers tinkle like broken glass as we open on Tobe’s trademark Texan moon, cloaked in ominous clouds, which hangs above a lively whorehouse somewhere in town. As the buzzing synths fade (provided once again by Hooper, and TCM score collaborator, Wayne Bell), the camera cranes down so that we can get a peek inside the brothel. A young stud – named Buck, naturally (a baby-faced Robert Englund) – gets rough with a none-too-enthused girl who’s clearly new to the industry. The madam of the house (played by a heavily made-up Carolyn Jones, TV’s own Morticia Addams), realizes the girl won’t be earning the house money anytime soon, so she has Buck drop her off at a nearby motel. Not long after that the girl is attacked by the owner of the motel, Judd (a brilliant and scene-stealing Neville Brand) – a Norman Bates for the ’70s – and fed to his pet croc out back. This all happens within the first 10 minutes of the movie, effectively letting the viewer know just what to expect for the remaining run time.
Hooper doesn’t stray too far from the sandbox with Eaten Alive. Squint hard enough and the whole thing plays out like a spiritual sequel to TCM. Judd, the war-torn backwoods weirdo struggling to make a living, sex-averse and mumbling ominous warnings, clad in a beige work uniform, could be a long lost brother of world-weary Drayton Sawyer. Instead of the imposing Leatherface jumping out from behind a sliding kitchen door, trapping his unsuspecting prey, we get a giant crocodile bursting forth from the water, attacking any tourists and trespassers who get too close to his territory. (And much like the demented family dynamic of the Sawyers, Judd beats the hell out of the croc whenever the mood strikes.)
And then there’s Marilyn Burns, essentially playing her Sally Hardesty role one more time. Here, she’s named “Faye”, but she’s still tied up and beaten by our main antagonist just the same. She screams for a good chunk of the film, and tries to escape, but not before being thrown around a bit. (There’s even a scene where our lead maniac, big sharp weapon in hand, chases a screaming girl through the Texas woods at night, only for her to be rescued by a passing motorist – resulting in him doing a frustrated dance with his instrument of death.)
The noticeable difference in Hooper’s follow-up is the tone. TCM was great at teasing imagery, making your imagination do the work. (TCM was originally slapped with an X rating, despite there being very little blood in the final product.) But what Hooper teased in his debut he makes sure to put on full display in Eaten Alive, and then some. The unsettling sexuality and T&A that was missing from TCM flows at a steady pace here. The violence, previously achieved with cutaways and sound effects, is bright and brutal and gruesome at Judd’s motel; his weapon of choice is a scythe, which he uses to stab, hook, and slice away with gape-mouthed glee. It’s almost as if Hooper wants to earn the X rating his prior film had unjustly been given.
Even with it being mostly off-putting and strange, Eaten Alive is an admirable second effort from the then-tenderfooted Hooper. The bizarre performances (the great William Finley making the most of his brief screen time) and unique lighting choices (half of the film is bathed in stark red light, making it look as if it was shot in a darkroom) are the weirdly creative results from being a newcomer behind the camera who has more heart than budget – and part of what makes the final product so enjoyable. You don’t see that too often anymore, with even first-time independent horror film directors turning in pristine works of art.
Full of filth and blood, and creepy hillbillies ogling nubile and unsuspecting young women, obtuse death tools, and bizarre performances: Eaten Alive is pure Tobe.
The penultimate season of Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) aired its first three episodes on October 31, so it’s understandable that at least one of those three stories is set on Halloween.
Sandwiched between “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Russell Mulcahy, Ron Finley) and “Whirlpool” (Mick Garris, A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler) is the most severe episode of the bunch. Maybe the entire series? William Malone and Dick Beebe’s “Only Skin Deep” traded the show’s typical sense of fun for startling amounts of bleakness and kink.
“Only Skin Deep” is, apart from the Crypt Keeper’s intro and outro, noticeably unfunny. There are no considerable attempts at making the viewer laugh. Come to think of it, if those bookends had been replaced, and there was more of a sci-fi element in the story, HBO could have easily squeezed this tale into that successor anthology, Perversions of Science (1997). In Crypt, though, “Only Skin Deep” is much too grim for an audience that had become accustomed to campiness and levity.
What makes “Only Skin Deep” feel dark, among other things, is its protagonist. Showing up to a Halloween party where he’s not welcome, and where his former girlfriend (Diane DiLasco) is attending, Carl Schlag (Peter Onorati) first comes across as your standard bitter ex. You soon realize it’s much worse than that, once Carl threatens Linda (“You know, silly me, thinking I gave you what you deserved. If I’d have done that, I’d have killed you”). Now, I haven’t forgotten that Tales from the Crypt was teeming with vile men who did women harm. Yet Carl’s brand of misogynistic menace hits differently—it borders on being too realistic for this kind of series.
Mike Vosburg’s EC-style comic cover for “Only Skin Deep”, as seen in the Tales from the Crypt episode.
Despite donning a party mask for much of the episode, Carl can’t ever mask his true nature. The invitation did say “come as you are”, after all. That inability to change and be better, however, is why Carl ends up in such a karmic predicament. His outburst of anger at the party attracts the attention of one loner partygoer named Molly (Sherrie Rose, who was also in Season Four’s “On a Deadman’s Chest”). Her bone-white, featureless “mask” and body-bag costume don’t initially register as too strange, especially on a night like this. But at a party chock-full of colorful, cartoonish, and lighthearted ensembles, it does look out of place.
Darkness attracts darkness as Carl ditches the party and accompanies the mysterious Molly to her place. Which, by the way, should have been an immediate red flag. But perhaps she’s so hot, he doesn’t seem to mind the serial killer aesthetic. Resembling a warehouse that has been converted into living spaces, but never then decorated to remove the cold, industrial look, Molly’s home (or lair) is as gloomy as this whole episode feels. It’s like the set of a grungy music video, albeit a tad cleaner. The environments in a typical Crypt episode tend to be small, overfilled, and broken-in. Warm, regardless of any weird goings-on. All that empty space in Molly’s hovel, on the other hand, elicits a creepy feeling that Carl was unwise to ignore.
Tales from the Crypt featured more sex than it didn’t, but hands down, “Only Skin Deep” boasts the steamiest scene in the show’s history. Pushing it over the line, in addition to Onorati showing bare buns and the camera never turning down one of his pelvic thrusts, is the twisted dirty talk. Carl stays in the moment, whereas Molly unleashes charged lines like “the hurt, the anger, give it to me” and “take it out on my flesh like you want to”. It’s all quite kinky, as well as tied into the story’s theme of pain.
How else “Only Skin Deep” differs from other episodes is its twists. Or rather, its lack thereof. Nothing comes as a great surprise here, particularly because the deuteragonist’s ulterior motives are so obvious. By no means is Molly a wolf in sheep’s clothing; her face is a fright mask, she practically reeks of death, and she lives in what can best be described as a serial killer’s hideout. That last-act revelation of Molly’s mask really being her face is also nothing shocking. Cleverness is certainly not this episode’s strength.
A page from “…Only Skin Deep!”, as seen in EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.
While “Only Skin Deep” isn’t the most universally loved episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s an interesting preview of William Malone’s future as a director. Most notably, he went on to helm House on Haunted Hill (1999) and FeardotCom (2002), the former of which was co-written by Dick Beebe, this episode’s writer. Dark Castle Entertainment, that genre house founded by Crypt producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler, was instrumental in bringing out Malone’s gruesome, over-the-top vision in House on Haunted Hill. However, FeardotCom and Malone’s Masters of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child”, are the most stylistically compatible with “Only Skin Deep”.
As one might guess, this episode is nothing like its source material. The “…Only Skin Deep!” found in the pages of EC Comics is set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and save for its last couple of pages, is pretty sweet in nature. There, a man named Herbert is enamored with a woman he met five years prior to the present-day story. Every year, he has come down to Mardi Gras to see Suzanne, who’s always dressed as a hag-faced witch. Well, this time, Herbert plans on popping the question and marrying someone who is, for the most part, a total stranger. Suzanne accepts his proposal, but with one condition: they stay in costume until they’re officially hitched. You can probably see where this is going…
Once they are married, Suzanne remains incognito, even when she and Herbert have consummated their vows. A semi-predictive nightmare then rattles Herbert; he dreamt that Suzanne’s real face was as wizened as her mask. Finally, in his haste to find out the truth, Herbert winds up killing his new wife. Faceless and well on her way to bleeding out, the dying Suzanne manages to say she never wore a mask.
For more traditional EC-style ghastliness, your best bet is reading the comic. It’s wickedly sad. For something less conventional, as far as Tales from the Crypt goes, the role-reversing adaptation is worth watching. It’s not the best this show had to offer, although Malone’s visual style, plus the sexual abandon, does set the episode apart. If nothing else, “Only Skin Deep” leaves an impression that, even years later, shows no signs of fading.
Season Six of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 5.
Tales from Tales from the Crypt celebrates the show’s Shudder premiere by singling out one episode from each season. So don’t even think about changing that dial, boys and ghouls. More spot-“frights” are to come.
Carl discovers Molly’s collection of human ‘masks’ in the Tales from the Crypt episode, “Only Skin Deep”.
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