Diana, who had taken a trip to the jungles in New Guinea is now missing and her sister Sheila decides to head off to find her. Together with a man named Mark who reluctantly agrees to take her for a load of money, they head off and find far more than they bargained including a man who believes himself a prophet, a cult that follows him and cannibals.

When Eaten Alive was released in 1980, cannibal movies were far more common than they have ever been since and it would find itself being somewhat average with little setting itself apart from the rest in the genre. In fact, every cannibal cliche one could think of is in this film which is not necessarily a bad thing as it cements itself amongst its brethren and lets people know what to look forward to. Some of those things include gratuitous rape because that is obviously what all native tribes do in the Amazon, the killing of animals, the dismembering and eating of various body parts as well as more than enough blood to fill a few barrels. A little different than the norm was seeing a David Koresh kind of guy living down there with his religious cult, trying to convert the natives while he has sex with the women in a variety of ways, including the use of phallic objects.

One can easily point to the negatives in this film as there are quite a few of them, whether it be the acting, the direction, the script or any of the nonsensical things that take place throughout the movie. It is hard to say if the script were better the actors and actresses might have had more to work with and thus put a little more effort into it. As it is, most of those that star within are not very compelling aside from Ivan Rassimov as cult extremist Jonas Melvin. His character is the usual kind of crazy one might find in a picture such as this, but he gives it a little bit of a college try, which makes the audience want to see more of what he might do no matter how deplorable. Taken as a whole, the film was a hodge-podge of new and old material, with director Umberto Lenzi taking the easy way out, though one could also say he was filming smart. He took existing footage from other movies and spliced in his new scenes thereby keeping costs down and still making it fairly coherent from start to finish despite a few irregularities here and there.

When all is said and done, Eaten Alive is an okay cannibal movie as far as this subgenre is concerned. If one is looking for surface entertainment without having to dive too deep, it will suffice and surely provide enjoyment for those who like nudity and gore. Sadly, when one attempts to look any further than that, it tends to disappoint as nothing new here pushes it beyond anything previously seen in films like Cannibal Holocaust or Man From Deep River, the latter of which some of the footage was culled. Lenzi could have done a lot better than this and has so it is a little sad that whatever the circumstance, this is what he decided to put his name to. It is decent and is not as terrible as some movies but it could have been more.

2.5 out of 5