Sheila is searching for her missing sister Diana and when she finds out that Diana has joined a cult in the jungles of New Guinea, she teams up with Vietnam-veteran Mark to rescue her.
Not to be confused with Tobe Hooper's Death Trap which under its US release went by the title Eaten Alive. No, this is one of those old Italian cannibal flicks and when talking about these old films, there are often three cannibals flicks that fans like to mention and Eaten Alive is one of those, with the others two being Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox. This film does not rank as high on the "cannibal scale" as the previously two mentioned, and personally I also prefer Jungle Holocaust and Mountain of the Cannibal God a lot more than Eaten Alive, but this one of course has its charm too. One major problem with this film is, expect for that the acting's unusually wooden, that the focus is not entirely on the cannibal side of things but instead on this dress-wearing sect leader named Jonas.
The film starts out with that Sheila Morris' (Janet Agren from Fulci's City Of The Living Dead) sister has disappeared. She later find out that her dear sister, Diana, has run off to join some bizarre religious cult that operates in the jungles of New Guinea. She's determined to track her down but she need some help so she hires this Vietnam-veteran, Mark Butler (Robert Kerman from Cannibal Holocaust/Cannibal Ferox fame), to help her out in the big and dangerous jungle. It doesn't take long before they run into some flesh-loving cannibals, but they're rescued from them when some cult members pass by, and so they find themselves in the middle of the crazy cult they were looking for.
 
Now, the cult leader Jonas (Ivan Rassimov) is one weird bastard indeed. He wears this lady dress and when seeing him on screen, it's hard to focus on anything else but why the hell this guy's wearing a freakinī dress. Well, we never get to know the reason to why, maybe he just likes to stand out a bit (and sure succeeds at it as well.) If wearing a dress would've been the only thing the guy did, then things would've been just fine, problem though is that this ladyboy likes to drug and brainwash his followers and when he has some free time on his hands, he doesn't play golf but instead he likes to sexually assault the female members of the cult. Now that's one twisted hobby.
During the course of the film, Sheila and Mark are trying to plan their escape along with Sheila's sister, but things are everything but easy since Jonas keeps drugging poor Sheila, and even if they make it outside of the cult's village, they have tons of cannibals to face in the big jungle. One problem with Eaten Alive is that it borrows a lot from other films, even footage, and that's of course not a good thing. What is good about this movie though is that it's simply trash cinema that shouldn't be taken seriously but that is in fact sometimes very enjoyable.
The real gore comes quite late in the film but it's there and it's as enjoyable as ever.. well almost. The cult however is quite boring and way too much time is spent in the cult's village where we have to sit through dull ceremonies and other mind numbing stuff. Eaten Alive may be the little kid compared to a few other selected cannibal films and does not have very original or mind blowing stuff to offer. Still though, it's definitely worth taking a look at because even if it sucks at times, it sure has a handful of cool things to offer.
Not as good or gruesome as a bunch of other cannibal flicks but still well worth a look. Don't take it seriously but just enjoy it for what it really is: nasty trash cinema.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Mangiati vivi, Doomed to Die, Eaten Alive, Emerald Jungle
MOVIE YEAR: 1980
DIRECTOR: Umberto Lenzi
WRITING CREDITS: Umberto Lenzi
GENRE: Horror, Adventure
CAST: Robert Kerman, Janet Agren, Ivan Rassimov
COUNTRY: Italy
RUNTIME: 92 min
RATING: 6/10
Eaten Alive by the Cannibals Website/IMDB Click here
Eaten Alive by the Cannibals Trailer Click here
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