The film stars Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Roberta Collins, Robert Englund, William Finley, Marilyn Burns, Janus Blythe, and Kyle Richards.

[7] After refusing a demand for anal sex from a customer named Buck, naïve prostitute Clara Wood is evicted from the town brothel by the madame, Miss Hattie.

[10][11] Working under the title Death Trap, Eaten Alive was filmed entirely on the sound stages of Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California, which had a large-scale pool that could double as a swamp.

[12] Shooting on a sound stage instead of a practical location contributed to the atmosphere of the film, which director Tobe Hooper described as a "surrealistic, twilight world.

The director later recalled how he worked with actor Neville Brand to fully develop the character of Judd, declaring, "He understood what he was doing exactly.”[15] The film was initially released in 1976 under the title Starlight Slaughter by Virgo International, then re-released as Eaten Alive by New World Pictures in 1978.

[20] Its gratuitous violence became the focal point of many social critics in the UK, including vocal conservative activist Mary Whitehouse, and the film became one of the first of the so-called "video nasties" to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959.

David Bartholomew of Cinefantastique complained of the "unevenly directed" cast and predictable plot, claiming the film's only saving grace was the "airless, claustrophobic set, supposedly exterior but obviously built on a sound stage" which called back to horror movies of the 1930s and 40s such as Strangler of the Swamp.

[16] Linda Gross in the Los Angeles Times called the script "implausible and offensive", taking particular issue with the "gratuitous violence, nudity and soupcon of kinky sex".

[26] In The Monthly Film Bulletin, Martyn Auty criticized "the linear and predictable pattern of slaughter" that he felt eliminated the possibility of suspense, and the use of female characters as the victims of sexual violence that "suggests that sexism remains an unconscious force in exploitation cinema".

Scream Magazine writer Cleaver Patterson felt it "kills the sense of reality which made TCM [Texas Chain Saw Massacre] so chilling"[33] and Dread Central's Dave J. Wilson dubbed the set design "cheap, tacky and fake".

[35][36] Stefan Jaworzyn in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Companion and Josh Goller in Spectrum Culture felt that the sound design and score added to the surreal feeling of the film.

Brand's performance as Judd was pointed to as a highlight, described as "enough to make the movie a minor genre classic"[42] by one critic and "one of the great overlooked characters in horror cinema" by another.

"[47] Throughout the film, each of the characters represent and are driven by base desires: Judd by murderous instincts, Buck by lust, and even the sheriff who is romantically interested in Libby.

[42][10] For Screen Slate, the film's satirical take on human nature as animalistic and violent represents a shift towards more overt comedy compared to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

[47] Literature and media studies professors Kristopher Woofter and Will Dodson list Eaten Alive as among Hooper's films that are "infused with dark humor in their unsettling of America's sacrosanct vision of family and nation.