Given the left-field phenomenon that was 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, anything director Tobe Hooper had chosen for a follow-up was bound to be met with disappointment. Eaten Alive was. That’s too bad, because it may be an even weirder work. It doesn’t stray too terribly far from Texas’ brand of rural terror, either, where the math is simple: redneck = scary.

Also inspired by a true story, the low-budget pic is almost confined to two locations: a two-bit brothel run by ol’ Miss Hattie (Carolyn Jones, the former Morticia of TV’s The Addams Family) and the fleabag Starlight Hotel run by the unwashed Judd (a super-skeevy Neville Brand, Killdozer). It’s a miracle the latter does any business, as it backs up to a swamp — plus, Judd has a nasty habit of killing practically everyone who crosses the lobby’s threshold, and feeding their bloodied bods to his pet crocodile. Like vermin to a Roach Motel, they check in, but don’t check out.

Among the Starlight’s guests are a runaway hooker (Roberta Collins, The Big Doll House), the father desperately searching for her (Mel Ferrer, Nightmare City), a henpecked husband (William Finley, Phantom of the Paradise), his wife (Marilyn Burns, following Hooper from Texas) and their young daughter (Kyle Richards, The Watcher in the Woods) who won’t stop screaming after her yappy little dog (Scuffy) becomes an evening snack for that backyard croc.

As unpolished as its predecessor, the better-acted but lower-powered Eaten Alive proves bothersome on its own strange frequency, from overpowering gels that run red (and accentuate the set’s artifice) to Hooper’s music score — if you can call it that — disturbing enough in purposefully agonizing discord. Add to that the pre-Freddy Krueger role of Robert Englund as a p-hound itchin’ for anal (“My name’s Buck and I’m ready to fuck,” he says in the movie’s opening line, as if to warn the particularly skittish), and you have a flick obsessed with poking at your scabs.

Slasher fans may enjoy Judd’s slicing shenanigans with his trusty scythe, but for me, it’s all about the instances of crocodile chomp (although not to Judd’s orgasmic extent). Eventually — the year 2000, to be exact — a career-nadir Hooper made a whole movie about that — Crocodile, to be exact — to far less hurrah. —Rod Lott

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