Eat 'Em Alive: A weird, scrappy little trip

Is it worth your time?

Look, if you are the kind of person who needs crisp lighting and actors who took more than one take to get their lines right, stay away. You will hate this. But if you have a soft spot for movies that feel like they were filmed in someone's backyard with a budget of three dollars and a half-eaten sandwich, you might have a weirdly good time.

It’s not good, exactly. But it is alive, in a way that things with a hundred-million-dollar marketing budget never are.

Notes from the couch

Harold Auten is clearly doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and you can tell. Sometimes the camera stays on a shot for way too long, like the operator just fell asleep or got distracted by a bird. It happens during the tense parts, too, which just makes the whole thing feel strangely meditative.

There's a scene near the middle—I won't spoil it—but the lighting shifts from 'daytime' to 'what is happening' in the span of one cut. It’s hilarious. It’s the kind of mistake you only get when people are just trying to get the job done before the sun sets.

The pacing is a total disaster. It hits the ground running and then trips over its own feet for about forty minutes. Then, suddenly, it remembers it’s supposed to be a thriller and everything happens all at once. My neck actually hurt from the whiplash.

Strange comparisons

It’s funny to think about how this compares to something like The Abysmal Brute. That one has a certain rhythm, a sense of where it's going. Eat 'Em Alive just wanders into traffic and hopes for the best. It’s closer in spirit to the chaotic energy of The Hazards of Helen, though with significantly less polish and, well, less of everything else too.

• The sound design sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can.
• The extras in the background look like they are just waiting for the bus.
• There is a prop in the third act that I am 90% sure is just a painted rock.

I found myself wondering if anyone involved actually liked the final product. It doesn't feel like it. It feels like a project that just needed to exist so it could finally stop taking up space in someone's brain. Anyway, I didn't hate it. That’s probably the highest praise I can give it, right? 🤷‍♂️