What happens when you throw assassins in New York City, cannibals in the jungle and a Jim Jones-like cult leader into a big pot and set it to boil? You get Eaten Alive!Sheila (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead, Hands of Steel) is searching for her sister, Diana (Paola Senatore, Emanuelle in America) who has disappeared in the jungle. She hires Mark (Robert Kerman, Cannibal Holocaust) to help her find her way through the jungle. Oh yeah - and there are killers in the city using blowdarts. That doesn't matter so much once we're in the jungle.When they find Diana - after being chased by cannibals - they learn that she has joined the cult of Jonas (Ivan Rassimov, everyone cheer when he shows up to make this movie awesome), who abuses, murders, manipulates and ********* everyone and anyone he gets close to. Seriously, the minute Jonas shows up, this film goes off the rails. First, he burns a man on a funeral pyre and ordering his wife Mowara (Me Me Lai, who thanks to appearances in this film, Last Cannibal World and Man from Deep River is pretty much to this genre as Edwich Fenech, Barbara Bouchet or Nieves Navaro are to giallo)to be ritually raped. Then, he hypnotizes Sheila and takes her on an altar using a snake phallus covered in venom and blood (yep, really). He pretty much owns everyone he can get his hands on, but Mowara, Sheila,Jonas preaches the Book of Isiah and pretty much owns everyone he can get his hands on, but Mowara, Sheila, Mark and Diana all attempt to escape. Diana and Mowara are overtaken by cannibals, with Diana graphically devoured while her sister and Mark watch helplessly. A helicopter arrives at the last minute to save them while the film goes into full exploitation mode, with the cult killing themselves ala Jonestown, leaving only one female survivor.Oh man, I forgot! Mel Ferrer (The Visitor, Nightmare City) shows up as a professor!Director Umberto Lenzi knows how to make a down and dirty film. He also knows how to keep it entertaining. Just witness other films he's done like Ghosthouse! Plus, he's the master of recycling, as this film re-uses the crocodile death and a woman being eaten from his 1972 film Sacrifice! (also starring Rassimov and Me Me Lai), Me Me Lai's death from Ruggero Deodato's Jungle Holocaust and a castration, a monkey being devoured by a monkey and a man being eaten by a crocodile from Sergio Martino's Slave of the Cannibal God. You could say he...cannibalized those movies! Sorry.Again, keep in mind that these are rough films. They're nearly indefensible, to be honest. I kind of wish the story of Jonas and his cult was more of the movie, with less of the cannibals. But you know, I can't send notes back to Lenzi with a time machine or anything!

I Thought that Eaten Alive! was a good film. It is one of the less gruesome cannibal films. In New York a mysterious person hunts down certain victims on the streets and kills them with darts dipped in Cobra venom. The killer is eventually killed himself, and it is found out that he was a member of a strange religious cult deep in the New Guinea jungle. A religious cult of cannibals. A woman from New York goes to search for the cult, and tries to find her sister who has gone missing in the jungle. There is a lot of gore and nudity in the film which can be strong. This was a great film which was directed by Umberto Lenzi.

Eaten Alive! (1980) *** (out of 4)Sheila Morris (Janet Agren) is looking for her missing sister and hires Mark (Robert Kerman) to lead her into the jungle where the police believe the sister is. It turns out that the sister is there in the jungle but is with a religious nut (Ivan Raassimov) who is forming a cult.Umberto Lenzi previously kickstarted the Italian cannibal genre with MAN FROM DEEP RIVER and then Ruggero Deodato took it to the more extreme with both JUNGLE HOLOCAUST and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Many people consider EATEN ALIVE! to be the most disgusting film that the genre ever delivered and in many ways they are probably correct. It's certainly not as well made as some of the other films I mentioned but there's no question that Lenzi clearly wanted to top Deodato in terms of trash and sleaze.The most controversial thing about these Italian cannibal movies is the fact that they featured a lot of animals being killed for real. If that sort of thing bothers you then you're really going to hate this movie as I think there are more animal deaths here than in any of the other films from the genre. There are some ugly killings here so one needs to be warned. With that said, this type of "violence" was expected in films like this and in the end it really adds to the sleaze factor.I've always enjoyed these cannibal movies because to me they are basically action and adventure films. They are cheap "B" movies just like the old Tarzan films were and that's part of the charm. The jungle locations just seems very taboo and you often think that the filmmakers were crazy for filming out there. The settings are perfect and there's certainly a lot of sleaze in the real violence as well as all of the nudity and the graphic fake violence, which does offer up what the title says: people are eaten alive! Kerman and Agren are both good enough to keep you entertained in what's going on. You've got Rassimov turning in a good performance and it's fun seeing Paola Senatore, Me Me Lai and Mel Ferrer in smaller roles. EATEN ALIVE! certainly isn't a masterpiece but it is a good trash picture that offers up what you'd expect in a film like this.

This is a pretty decent attempt to mix horror with adventure. The story itself is quite solid and interesting but the way it is told at times really doesn't make this the best movie in its genre.The movie begins promising and it takes its time to build up things. The movie remains perfectly mysterious until it becomes clear that this is a movie about cannibalism. The gloves are off then and the story rapidly becomes sillier and sillier.The movie gets an extremely bad story-flow and some sequences just don't add up to each other. It provides the movie with some many silly laughable bad moments. Nevertheless the movie still has more than enough redeeming qualities to consider this a decent one.The cannibalism sequences are pretty brutal and graphic to watch, though they same very random and perhaps also a bit too forced in the movie but its definitely enough and good enough all the please the fans. There also are many gruesome scene's involving animals eating each other or getting cut open by the locals. Also many of the other Italian genre elements are present, including next to its graphic sequences, lots of nudity and sexThe acting isn't much good and the dubbing is even worse. Robert Kerman thinks that he is the new Indiana Jones. Also the characters must have looked interesting on paper but don't ever fully work out in the movie, including its main villain played by Ivan Rassimov, that really showed some potential.The settings are quite nice and they know to create a good atmosphere for the movie. Surprising to see that this movie was filmed at places all over the world (Niagra Falls, New York City, Sri Lanka). Surprising because normally Italian horror movies aren't known for having an high budget. The music on the other hand is horrible, which we are accustomed to from the genre.Watchable enough but obviously for genre-fans only.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/