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Stay Alive [2006]
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Straight from the set-'em-up and knock-'em-down school of teen-horror filmmaking, Stay Alive gives literal meaning to the parental lament, "Those games will kill you someday." Not that you'll find any parents in this gimmicky thriller set in New Orleans; they're conspicuously absent when Hutch (Jon Foster) and his hardcore gamer pals discover "Stay Alive," a mysterious next-generation computer game that has a nasty way of precipitating mayhem, horror, and death. If your character dies in the game, you're doomed to die in identically grisly fashion in real life. So, just don't play the game, right? WRONG. This being a teen horror flick with a screenplay that makes no sense whatsoever, the gamer pals (including victim #2, Hutch's boss, played with game-addicted fervor by Adam Goldberg) obsessively investigate the game and its creepy Ring-like origins in the 17th century murder spree of a woman known as "The Blood Countess." Because movies like this are best viewed on a steady diet of Pop Tarts and Ritalin, Jimmi Simpson earns top honors as the gamer pal with the creepiest behavior, and Malcolm in the Middle fans will enjoy the presence of Frankie Muniz as a gamer geek whose primary fashion statement consists of grimy T-shirts and green plastic poker-visors. While not nearly as fun or clever as the Final Destination movies, Stay Alive delivers a few good deaths while blatantly stealing most of its horror highlights from Ju-On and other Japanese horror hits. It's junk from start to finish, but its target audience of mallrats and gamers (especially those with attention deficit disorder, which helps to ignore the plot holes) won't mind a bit.--Jeff Shannon
Ok, but I'm not the target audience
Review date: 2008-09-17 Rating: 6 out of 10
I'm not going to mark this down on account of it being aimed at a different demographic to me but it is quite mild horror even by 15 cert standards and with its video gamers subject matter I can see it being enjoyed more by mid-teens than middle aged watchers.
The central idea was fine revolving around, I suppose you would call it, a 'cursed' beta video game whereby the one playing would be dispatched in the manner that they died within the game by the come-to-life game character one Elisabeth Bathory no-less (Hammer fans may remember her from 'Countess Dracula' in which Bathory was the influence for)
Cue lots of quite effective creepy video game footage and some equally good transposing of this imagery outside of the game. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot more to it than that. There were plenty of 'jumpy' bits, maybe too many really to compensate for the lack of gore and depictions of killings etc and those bits were also too reliant on an accompaniment of loud music to induce the fright.
I personally thought it was a mistake and downright bizarre to relocate Elisabeth Bathory from Hungary to the U.S and still have no idea why her mortal remains were just lying uncorrupted in a tower there. It may have been better to construct a fictional character instead; some if not all of the film was set in New Orleans for goodness sake, a wealth of creepiness and potential horror there.
I thought the other characters were a bit flat, I don't think Frankie Munz will be breaking into movies on the basis of this film. The emotions displayed in response to the death toll were either nonchalance or temporary devastation before nonchalance set in again and it was silly how one of the characters who none of the group had ever met before was there for the whole film tagging along with the rest of them.
A promising premise which didn't fulfil it's potential as a horror film but not too bad all the same. 2.5 stars.
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Reviews
Videogames will never be the same again
Review date: 2008-09-12 Rating: 10 out of 10
From beginning to the end a chilling, jump out of your seat movie. Watched this with friends and we all had our faces hid in parts. 10/10 on an unusual horror movie instead of the same old pointless ones churned out
SKETCHEY. DONT PLAY FEAR OR CONDEMNED AFTER WATCHING THIS FILM
Review date: 2008-07-24 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a really good film and is rather sketchey. DONT PLAY FEAR OR CONDEMNED AFTER WATCHING IT. I played Fear after watching this film and it makes yo feel so wierd if you die in it
Stay Alive offers originality and suspense!
Review date: 2008-02-03 Rating: 8 out of 10
So, You're probably looking at all the bad reviews for Stay Alive and thinking, no thanks - i'll pass. Don't. This movie isn't bad. I mean, It's not going to win an Oscar, but what horror movie does?
Stay Alive was original straight from the bat. So no, it's not a remake. Nor is it based on a popular Japanese film or legend. Relieved? - probably. Now, don't get me wrong, "Stay Alive" isn't the best horror movie you will see, it probably won't even make your top 10 - but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining. Even though there are some obvious flaws and sometimes very annoying ones (that were stupidly missed by the producers), If you don't take the movie seriously, you will like it.
Others will say the story is similar to the movie "The Ring" - and yes, they are right. Only this time instead of it being a videotape, it's a video game. You play the game. You die in the game. You die in real life. Simple really.
The plot at times seemed weak and way too easy. There weren't any "Oh no" or "What?" moments. No twists. At one point I think I said "BLAH". I could almost kind of guess the ending my first time watching. It's sad though, as the movie does have some great tense scenes. But when you weigh it out, there are more bad than there are good.
Now, my biggest problem with the movie is the female lead, "Samaire Armstrong". This was a shock to me because I adore Samaire as Anna in the hit TV series "The O.C". But after watching the movie, it made me realise Samaire is in no way lead female material - not even close. Her character is overshadowed by the talented (might I say stunningly gorgeous) One Tree Hill actress "Sophia Bush" as October. Sophia can make the stretch from cute teen drama actress, to punk/goth girl, and she shows a whole new side of her acting here. Samaire on the other hand looks very..dare I say bored?. I know it sounds stupid but If you just watch her performance throughout the movie - it's very below average. Some scenes she looks very uncomfortable, and her posture is awful - very wooden. It showed me her acting range is very limited. It appears Samaire can only play "Cute Girl" from The O.C., not female survivor in a horror. Another problem I had was, a lot of scenes seemed rushed, like they only did 2 takes. During the movie, sometimes I felt as though I was watching a High School Drama play - the acting was really off at times, like they couldn't even be bothered trying. This is mostly to the male lead "Hutch". Most of the other actors did a good job though.
On a more positive note, If you put Samaire's acting aside. Stay Alive is a very entertaining horror flick. With good suspense, an outside the box plot and a creepy new horror villain - you can't go wrong.
So, turn the lights out, curl on the sofa and prepare to be "slightly scared" for an hour and a half.
sorry...but i liked it
Review date: 2008-01-14 Rating: 8 out of 10
i really enjoyed this film, im very interested in the legend of elizabeth bathory so this was the icing on the cake for me. A film about her. Yes it was slightly cheesy in parts, but generally it really scared me, and my rule is - if it scares me, it has to be good!
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Samaire Armstrong
Frankie Muniz
Sophia Bush
Adam Goldberg
James Haven
Creators:
Sophia Bush (Primary Contributor)
Frankie Muniz (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Uca
Manufacturer: Uca
EAN: 5050582461886
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2006-11-26
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 83 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2006
Language: Dutch (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Subtitled)
Language: Bulgarian (Subtitled)
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)