Anyone with even a passing interest in the genre(s) will know that defining and isolating the Italian cannibal and zombie movie is a difficult task. For every clear-cut entry like Zombie Holocaust , the entry featuring both cannibals and zombies that gives Eaten Alive its lurid cover (its title coming from Umberto Lenzi's cannibals meet Jim Jones shocker) there are several littoral productions.
Author/editor Jay Slater has opted for a broad remit, such that any Italian production or (usually Spanish) co-production featuring cannibalism, including the likes of Pasolini's Pigsty , is included, along with any entry where the living dead exhibit zombie-style characteristics, even if a more conventional definition might see vampires, as with Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires and Ugaldo Ragona's adaptation of Richard Matheson's seminal I am Legend , The Last Man on Earth .
The result is that while the book is certainly comprehensive, some of the entries feel a touch dissociated from the sort of Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato product that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of the genre.
This feeling is compounded by the different approaches taken by Slater and his contributors. While all have clearly been given a remit of indicating why a given film counts as a zombie or cannibal entry should its credentials not be immediately apparent, the mix of fan and quasi-academic styles adopted by contributors as diverse as Royal College of Art Professor Christopher Frayling and Bloodsucking Freaks Joel M Reed doesn't always blend successfully, especially when interspersed with interviews with select genre figures like Ian McCulloch, Catriona MacColl and Giovanni Lombardo Radice. (And if you don't know those names, what the hell are you doing reading this?)
The fan pieces, such as Slater's own, are at their best at putting the films into their national and generic context, while the more academic entries tend to do better in exploring broader cultural issues. Theory raises its head on occasion, but mercifully most of the authors avoid the worst excesses of spurious intellectual bullshittery, even when the tendency to adapt a chunk of a thesis was clearly there.
The quality of the contributions is good overall. One exception, oddly, is the normally reliable Kim Newman. His contributions here fail to match his usual standards, with his piece on The Last Cannibal World being particularly pointless. Otherwise, there are plenty of times when I had an 'aha' moment at some revelation, or just plain laughed out loud at some opinion or anecdote.
Not perfect, then, but still a worthy addition to any genre fan's bookshelf to sit alongside Spaghetti Nightmares , Immoral Tales and the assorted FAB press director's series volumes.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
0.0 / 5
(0 votes)
|
7789 views
|
Previous
|
Next
|
Best prices on Eaten Alive
|
Print
|
Email page