Eaten Alive (1977)

Even the good people act batshit crazy before being Eaten Alive in this faux Psycho thriller which adds a huge crocodile to the dilapidated hotel mix. Tobe Hooper's second film (starting a downward spiral that continued with The Funhouse) is dark, weird and just not scary. Most inexplicably (in a film of inexplicable wigs and alternate titles) is why this hotel, run by the monologue spouting Neville Brand and seemingly located deep within some Okeefenokee swamp, has so many patrons - Marilyn Burns, Mel Ferrer, Robert Englund, Janus Blythe, Kyle Richards and William Finley all stop by for a rest while Stuart Whitman and Carolyn Jones stay on the outskirts.

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The Funhouse (1981)

The Funhouse is a mundane horror film directed by Tobe Hooper - he of the much less mundane (and much more original) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 version). Seven years after the classic Hooper has remained static in his filmmaking knowledge; in fact, he might have lost some precious abilities because this clinker about four kids trapped in a carnival funhouse has no thrills or blood. It's also badly acted except of course for the always-the-same-but-always entertaining Sylvia Miles playing, what else, a prostitute.

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