Death Trap
A deranged motel owner in a Louisiana swamp terrorises guests and feeds victims to the crocodile living beside his ramshackle hotel. Tobe Hooper followed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with another humid, nightmarish piece of American horror, this time leaning into theatrical colour and grotesque Southern-gothic atmosphere.
Film details
| Original / alt title | Eaten Alive; Death Trap; Horror Hotel; Starlight Slaughter |
| Year | 1976 |
| Director | Tobe Hooper |
| Country | USA |
| Runtime | Approx. 91 min |
| Main cast | Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, Robert Englund |
UK status
Listed during the Video Nasty era under the UK title Death Trap, but later dropped rather than remaining among the final prosecuted 39.
The film survives primarily through cult editions under both Death Trap and its better-known alternate title Eaten Alive.
Why it caused controversy
UK censorship / Video Nasties history
A quick status check first, followed by the film’s censorship timeline. A DPP prosecution was an obscenity case against a particular video publication — it was not automatically the same thing as a permanent nationwide “ban”.
Detailed censorship timeline & facts
FACTS & TRIVIA
- The film is also widely known as Eaten Alive, Horror Hotel and Starlight Slaughter.
- Neville Brand's feverish performance as Judd is central to the movie's strange atmosphere.
- Marilyn Burns returned to Hooper after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
- Robert Englund appears years before becoming Freddy Krueger.
- Hooper and Wayne Bell collaborated on the music.
- The crocodile and motel setting make the film visually distinct from Hooper's rural Texas breakthrough.
- Its changing titles contributed to confusion and helped it become a particularly collectible VHS-era film.
Distributor / VHS label
Archive cover shown is the user-supplied scan. UK distributor / VHS-label attribution varies by edition and is not asserted here without a verified sleeve imprint.
Trailer
Open a search for the original theatrical / VHS-era trailer. This keeps the archive linking to publicly available trailer sources rather than hosting copyrighted film footage.
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