The Stuff

Eaten Alive

Dark Sky Films DVD

Review for Legends Magazine by Dan Century

Eaten Alive opens with with a shot Robert “Freddy Kruger” Englund’s crotch as he delivers the memorable line: “My name is Buck, I’m raring to fuck”*. Buck is a local scumbag, looking for some $20 sodomy from the newest hooker at the local whorehouse run by Carolyn “Morticia Adams” Jones. The newbie whore wants no part of Buck’s buggery, and is kicked out of the whorehouse for disappointing Buck. With no where else to go, the whore seeks shelter at a creepy hotel run by local weirdo Judd (a role inspired by real life Texas killer Joe Ball). Judd’s hotel is set alongside a steamy swamp, complete with a hissing crocodile, ancient country music, patina covered walls, creepy mannequins, a sickly monkey and garish primary-colored lighting. The red, blue, cyan and purple lighting contrasts with large areas of complete darkness and long, jagged shadows, making the set appear warped and sinister, like a haunted insane asylum for circus performers. Many of the high-contrast/duo-color scenes look like pages torn from a Frank Miller comic book.

Judd is about as creepy a hotel manager as you would ever hope not to meet: disheveled hair, broken glasses, wooden leg, a coke habit (”happy C made me feel better already”) and a bi-polar personality with homicidal tendencies. More than anything in life, Judd seems to love his pet crocodile, and how it tore apart a mule, leaving the “front part screaming”. Croc will “eat anything, eat anything at all”. “No ordinary ‘gator, that’s a croc.” Yadda, yadda. Creepy enough to make any intelligent lodger turn tail and head for the nearest Red Roof Inn. Wisdom isn’t a commodity in this film, and everyone including drug dealers, whores, pill-popping wives, emasculated city slickers, sickly old men, and little girls aren’t safe from Judd and his croc. Even Snoopy the dog is doomed.

The kill count in Eaten Alive is respectable, but the gore is a little conservative. Considering the garish lighting of the set and the over-the-top acting of Neville Brand (Judd), I expected buckets of red bubbling blood, and barrels of quivering guts. I suppose most of the blood and guts end up in the croc’s belly anyway. There is an gristly scythe through the neck moment, ending in a scythe/human body/croc tug of war that is worth seeing.

The DVD comes with two entertaining featurettes: one interview with Robert Englund, and a documentary about Joe Ball, the Texas woman killer who the inspired the film. Eaten Alive is director Tobe Hooper’s follow up to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Eaten Alive is a classic, wacky b-horror film, with a quality cast, interesting visuals, a decent kill count and full frontal nudity — crucial classic horror movie viewing.

* Quentin Tarantino nicked this line for Kill Bill 1, a fact to impress your movie geek friends with.

This needs no explanation because there is no explanation.

One of the guys from Vice Magazine snuck [not a real word, but who cares] into North Korea and produced a 14 part documentary that is absolutely fascinating.

If you’re not interested in watching 14 parts, at least watch the 100,000 person synchronized performance thing called Arirang. It’s probably the biggest spectacle in the world.

This image isn’t from the video, but I get a kick out of it:

The Garfield Coleman. Somethings you just can’t explain with science.

More wacky stuff from newspapers.

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I love this photo so much I want to get it tattooed on my neck so I can see it every day for the rest of my life.

I’m going to miss newspapers once the web puts them all out of business. I’m going to miss the web, once the apocalypse puts the web out of business.

Here’s more wacky classifieds that a friend sent me via email.

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I’ve suffered from allergies since I was a kid. I took nasal steroids around 2000 and that cleared me up for about 4 years, but since then my allergies have gotten worse each year. Other than drugs there’s really two solutions: 1) have my nose rebuilt so I can breathe through it correctly, or 2) ingest some parasites that my body could fight instead of pollen and dust. People with parasites don’t get nasal allergies for the most part because their bodies are too busy fighting flukes or ring worms. There’s also folks that swear by chiropractors and Asian healers. I won’t rule out an old Asian dude, but chiropractors scare me, especially after one broke my cousin’s neck.

So today I came across an article on the Yahoo about something called Neti pots. People fill these little pots with warm water and salt and run it through their nose holes. I thought I’d try it, because at this point I’m willing to try anything that doesn’t snap my neck or force me to gargle tapeworms. The article linked to a YouTube featuring a woman using a Neti pot, but as with any visit to the YouTube, one video leads to another, and I found this silly video:

It’s jerky, but a laughed enough to make me want to post it.

Getting ready to take down my MySpace account. One of them. I like Facebook and Twitter better, mostly because they actually work (images load, pages don’t crash etc.). So… grabbing some stuff off the account before I close it. Stuff like the Chilly Cheese Dog poem:

Chilly Chilly Cheese Dog

Walked out my door
Drove down the street
Went to the Windmill
For something to eat…

I got the chilly chilly cheese dog
Chilly cheese ya’ll
Chilly chilly cheese dog
Chilly cheese ya’ll

Not just one
I got two
That’s two for me
And none for you

I got the chilly chilly cheese dog
Chilly cheese ya’ll
Chilly chilly cheese dog
Chilly cheese ya’ll. Word!

Don’t Go Near the Park

Dark Sky DVDs

Review for Legends Magazine by Dan Century

I avoid parks because they’re full of feculent junkies, obnoxious Vitamin Water swilling joggers, and bushels upon bushels of Canadian geese shit. After watching the classic Don’t Go Near the Park, I can add prehistoric magical vampire cannibals to my list. (more…)