Eaten Alive (1977)
Poor Clara the Prostitute (Roberta Collins) just can’t get a break. When she refuses to let Buck the john (Robert Englund, pre-Freddy Krueger) sodomize her, she gets kicked out of her sleazy brothel and into the street. Checking into a sleazy, toilet-down-the-hall motel, she meets up with grimy old bayou coot Judd (Neville Brand), who tries to rape her — and when she tries to fight him off, he stabs her repeatedly with a pitchfork. Then he feeds her to the alligators he keeps in the motel swimming pool.
That’s pretty much what Judd spends the whole movie doing: killing people and feeding them to his alligators.
Meanwhile, a young family checks in. They are the already-nutzoid Roy (William Finley), who talks about geting his own eye gouged out, and then starts barking like a dog for no apparent reason; Faye (Marilyn Burns, of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), who at times looks more disturbed by her husband’s behavior than she does by Leatherface’s; and their daughter, Angie (Kyle Richards, the little girl, Lindsey, in Halloween). Oh, and there’s Snoopy, their dog, who runs into the pool and gets — you guessed it — eaten alive… but not before Judd slices up Roy with a sickle and throws him in with the gators (to be — yes! — eaten alive!).
Next, Judd attacks Faye as she’s about to take a bath (sorry, but Marilyn doesn’t get naked in this one) and beats the hell out of her. Before he can kill her, he’s distracted by Angie’s screams, and chases the kid outside, where she hides under the house. Judd goes back upstairs for Faye… Next thing you know, Faye is gagged and bound to her (and the late Roy’s) bed, and Judd is sitting in the room, making weird noises. He gets up, and, and mutters incoherently for a while (he does a lot of that).
Meanwhile, under the house, Angie discovers the alligators (and some rats).
Meanwhile, Clara’s family, Harvey (Mel Ferrer) and Libby Wood (Crystin Sinclaire), come looking for her. With Sheriff Martin (Stuart Whitman) and the help of Clara’s former madam, Miss Hattie (Carolyn Jones), they track Clara down to the sleazy, toilet-down-the-hall motel.
They arrive as Judd is searching for Angie under the house. Libby goes off somewhere, and Judd turns his attention to Harvey, and — well, you know the rest by now: surprise attack, sickle, alligators.
More stuff happens… Buck brings a girl from the local bar to the motel… Faye struggles mightily against her restraints and screams a lot… Angie screams for help… Finally, Judd pushes Buck into the gator pool, and laughs with glee as he watches Buck get (say it with me!) eaten alive. Then Judd goes after Buck’s scantily-clad piece of fluff, chasing her into the swamp with his sickle. And… And do I really have to tell you how that turns out? Actually, yes, because he doesn’t get her; she stops a car (which ever-so-conveniently just happens to be passing through the swamp in the middle of the night), jumps in, and escapes.
Libby returns to the motel, where she discovers the trussed-up Faye, and un-trusses her. Just as the two women run out of the room, here comes sickle-wielding Judd, who gets a couple of slices in at Faye, who tumbles down the stairs. Libby makes a break to save Angie, and in a spate of utter confusion, an alligator suddenly appears, wraps its jaws around Judd’s head, and drags him into the pool. All that’s left of Judd is his wooden leg, which floats to the surface.
The End.
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