13 | November | 2015 | "DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!"

While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was (and still is) a memorable horror film experience, Tobe Hooper’s follow up, 1976’s Eaten Alive (released in 1977) was and is memorable for entirely different reasons. While it’s got a compelling and frightening performance from Neville Brand and that bathed in red sound stage set makes the film even more frightening, there’s a “too many hands” feel to the production process that makes the film more of a “B” than it deserves to be. That said, it’s yet another excellently produced Arrow release that’s worth a buy for the solid 2K restoration job and copious special features as well as the chance to see a film you may not have heard of previously (or had forgotten entirely).

Then again, given the incredibly sleazy origins of the “allegedly based on actual incidents” story here, Eaten Alive also works quite well as a pure “B” flick. Running a tidy 87 minutes, no time is wasted here as Brand’s psychotic veteran motel keeper, Judd, kills off a local lady of the evening after a tryst gone wrong at a brothel nearby sends her scampering for the hills after the madam (Carolyn Jones) gives her the boot. Judd runs the Starlight Hotel (one of the film’s many alternate titles along with Death Trap, Legend of the Bayou, Starlight Slaughter and Horror Hotel) which also happens to have a live crocodile as an attraction living in a penned in “swamp” outside. You know that Judd and his “pet” are going to be pretty busy as the film progresses and the victims show up as if there’s a massive magnet yanking their cars in that general direction. Continue reading →

Fun Fact: I am not at all a fan of ranch dressing, but for some reason people keep giving me bottles of the stuff. I somehow ended up with six unopened bottles over the space of two months this year thanks to friends buying it for parties and almost no one touching it. At least it was organic ranch dressing of a certain brand that seemed to not have a ton of terrible stuff inside those bottles.

That said, what does one DO with all those bottles of something one doesn’t consume? I thought of putting them in a box and placing said box downstairs by the mailbox with the word FREE! written on it. That’s always good for some amusement. Not too long ago another neighbor in the building left out a box of assorted books and DVD’s and there were a few people circling that box like wary stray dogs surprised by someone putting out free food before they jumped in and took most of the good stuff. The only things left were a Jean Claude Van Damme flick I’d never heard about, some sticker books (Ed Hopper and Talouse-Latrec), and a couple of comedy books I nabbed after the dust settled.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right:

(thanks, prestoff2000!)

Well, that FREE box of dressing was the plan until my brain sifted in “free range” with “free ranch” and I thought of doing something with chicken and some or all of that ranch dressing. “Like what?” you ask? Well, I may have taken a whole roasting chicken that I’d had in in a simple salt water brine for about 12 hours (because I’m crazy like that), drained that chicken, placed it in a gallon-size zip-top bag, added a bit of salt-free rub and poured about a cup of that dressing into that bag before sealing the bag and letting it sit for a few more hours in the fridge. Once that part was done, I may have peeled and sliced a few potatoes and placed them in the bottom of a glass baking dish on top of some foil, placed that ranchy chicken upside down atop those potatoes and popped that dish into a preheated 375 degree oven until I needed to flip the bird over and let it get nice and done.

Yeah, they call me the wrecking ball (er, in the kitchen, at least)…

I could have also sauteed some broccoli with sliced garlic and onions with a bit of red pepper flake in some olive oil and other stuff and served all that with plain ol’ white rice on the side because it takes the least time to make and my rice cooker is old but still works perfectly. Or maybe I didn’t because while that chicken turned out really tasty, I still don’t like ranch dressing. Well, on my salads at least. Oh, and I think some of those potatoes got diced into smaller bits and used in something eggy the next day. But that’s another tale for another time.