Stay Alive (2006)

Sex :
Violence :
Director William Brent Bell
Writers William Brent Bell, Matthew Peterman
Starring Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Jimmi Simpson, Sophia Bush
Genre Revenant
Tagline You die in the game - You die for real
Country

Review

"But I just figured out how to strip one of those zombie concubines naked." - Swink

A group of cyberpunks get their hands on a beta release of a horror game and set up to play that puppy. One of the dudes, Hutch, got the game amongst other things bequeathed to him by his best buddy, who just so happened to die on the night he played the game. Guess we all know where this is going. Basically, if you die in the game, you die in the exact same fashion in the SCREW (So Called Real World for the digitally challenged). And yes in this movie Cyberpunks are good looking gamers, i.e the sort of person you won't find jockeying a keyboard.

So after a couple of deaths, the surviving cyber victims go in search of the meaning of the game, who wrote it, and what's happening with all the death and mayhem. They get more than they bargained for as they find out their digital pastime involves an incantation to revive a witchy ex Romanian Countess with a line in bathing in young chica blood. Guess they managed to mix in two rips from other movies, which is one more than your traditional teen horror lite. The expected crap ensues, ready to login?

By the numbers teen-orientated horror flick that takes an interesting premise then waters it down to mush, and serves half cold. Was going for concise here in a random decision to get this movie out of the way soonest, but then thought what the heck, I wasted 90 odd minutes with this one so my readers can waste their time wading through the rest of the review. Sharing the pain friends and neighbours, don't say I never give you anything.

I had to check that Uwe Boll didnā't direct this one, as it has the same sort of video game insertions in it that the Germanic terror likes to muck around with. Guess the influence is growing, Mr Boll. On the bright side of the joystick, this movie posses a fictional game as opposed to being the adaptation of a real one, so guess that's progress of sorts.

Director Bell throws in some overhead shots to justify the budget but seems largely to be all at sea when it comes to building anything remotely like tension, or heightening the scream as the movie progresses. The opening scenes were pretty cool and lulled me into a false sense of security with regard to how good the movie was going to be, and then it just fell apart. Numerous unwarranted scenes, a love angle that went nowhere, and some major, major flaws. This is one of those hip teen movies that tries to keep its groove on but lacks anything like horror mojo. If you are thinking by the numbers then we're on the same wavelength, and you were also eyeing up a bottle of tequila as a viable option to get through the flick.

Did they even try with this movie or simply throw their hands in the air?

There's some pretty good scenery to be had, but it's all too little, and spread thinner than the Government's education budget. More of the dungeon and the house, less of the hipster teen hangouts please. The movie missed a salient opportunity in not progressing into more grungeville ala our rather comical protagonist Countess Bathory's hood.

Bell is of the "sudden shock scene with the eardrum exploding music to ensure we're going to jump" mode of horror making, and unfortunately for the Director I was heavily inclined to yawn rather than launch out of my seat. So we get plenty of sudden shocks, fast editing to get things zipping, and a dash of creepy movements by whatever the incidental ghosts were meant to be. Sorry Bell, some chick crawling down a wall has been done to death, and is thus hardly the scare scene it once was.

Character wise, this one is trying for hyper cyberheads, and ends up delivering the wannabe characters that are more apt to get sand kicked in their faces down the computer club than being the cool gamer elite. We get the required Goth chick, the hot blonde chick (where the flock did she come from anyways), a couple of duders, and the geek. Bell masterfully ensures none of them steps out of the cardboard cut out design of their characters, and hence I couldn't give a toss who stayed alive by the end credits.

The movie has a couple of points which I feel sum up the poor attempt overall of the project. Our lead dude Hutch has a line in facial hair and being afraid of Zippo lighters. Hey, you haven't lived till you've seen a big twenty something dude get all upset over a Zippo being fired up. It happens a couple of times in the movie, so no prizes for guessing this will play a part in the resolution.

Speaking of the final resolution, well turn me into a rom-com loving Mormon, was that totally bogus or what? It not only lumbered slowly over the horizon, but also phoned in from the airport to ensure we were totally aware of what was going down by about midway through this shambles. Guess the twist ending is out in teen city currently, though the producers clearly inserted a final scene to ensure they would have sequels waiting and ready if Stay Alive did anything approaching a profit at the box office.

Jon Foster (Hutch) took the lead in this one, and proved he possibly has a future as a daytime drama star. Good looks, the brooding thing happening, emoting not worth a damn. Dude, your best friend died, how about showing you cared or something. Samaire Armstrong (Abigail) didn't work for me, but that could be due to the fact that I couldn't work out exactly where she came from. Only in the movies can you get some chick that no one has ever met before taking happy snaps at a funeral.

Backing up our leads are the normal assortment of twenty-something actors who probably won't go onto fame and glory, but will crop up in the odd horror flick from time to time. Disposable, who cares.

T&A got sliced, I guess to ensure the PG13 rating went down, watched the unrated Director's cut and we get none in there either. So that's another black mark for the movie in my book of sorrows.

John Frizzell did the score, which was noteworthy for including the vibrating control schlock. Added in some places, but was another generic effort with a heard it before buzz happening.

Something tells me there was a much better film waiting to happen at the bus stop and the moviemakers just drove on past as they headed toward mediocre city, baby. A pretty bland, joyless attempt at a horror flick, that is akin to painting by numbers. Mostly harmless, and no doubt keeping the teeny boppers happy as they munched on their popcorn goodness. I was simply mesmerized by the whole thing, in a sort of "hey there's a huge truck bearing down on me, time to move arse" fashion. Not bad enough to turn off, but not good enough to really entertain. A pretty blah movie that elicited from me a meh reaction; and I really should have written this in SMS text.

There are times when I just get mean and recommend a movie that I know will have people writing in wondering if sanity has left the building; it's my thing, so suck it up. With Stay Alive I can't even bring myself to do that, the movie is simply a vehicle to separate teens from that $20 note they stole from mom's purse and no one is going to be wiser for the experience. Dreary and diabolically bad, game over dudette.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  Generic teen horror movie that doesn't even try for anything out of the box.