Stay Alive (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Redundant and unnecessary.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Elisabeth Bathory (mispronounced throughout) is after 'teens' when they play a noughties computer game, and apparently, she lived in America (as opposed to Romania).A bit like watching a childrens' tv 'drama', with absolutely no violence, no scares and nothing much of interest either.Whereas it is fast moving, mercifully short and has a reasonable budget, there is nothing much to see here.I can only summise that other reviewers giving rave reviews are about 12, its target audience.

After playing a cursed video game, a group of friends find themselves dying in the real world the way they did in the game and must unlock the secrets of the real figure at the center of it to stop the deaths from continuing.This here was quite an enjoyable and highly entertaining effort. One of the better elements of this one is the utterly freaky atmosphere throughout here, which is highly impressive at making this far more chilling than it deserves to be. This starts with the opening play- through of the game for the first time where this one shows off the plantation setting and survival horror tactics leading into the recreation attack which is really creepy enough, as well as the different manners of his one featuring her image tormenting the gang while they're no playing the game. A lot of these elements are furthered as well by the implementations of the real-life figure here with the mansion-house housing her being based on the actual mansion, the use of the flowers and her black horse-drawn carriage being taken right from the real person and it manages to get so much right about the history and legacy throughout the course of the game-play that it brings about the great sense of fear here about the growing realization that the game is coming to life against them. This brings the action into play here with this one having some solid confrontations in the plantation being driving by the game-play, using help in the game to provide the tactics necessary to survive in the real world and bring about plenty of absolutely frantic action in the race to get her free after being captured along the way. This also gets quite fun here with the absolutely enjoyable finale as the battle in the bedroom nicely mirrors the game-play held below in the dungeon and the burning-down-the-tower finale is utilized for great effect finishing this one on a high note. There's a few minor flaws at play here, which really begins with the main character herself for as much good as it is in most respects there's a part of history it gets wrong. The century and location-switch are the most obvious though there are other, smaller features about it that don't really follow throughout. As well, it's a rather large leap here in the storyline about the discovery of the main figure tormenting them, as not only is there very little need for them to investigate that character based on the game-play being the first time it had happened, but they believe it with flimsy connections at the time and very little investigative work anyway. This is easily the biggest flaw here and hurts this one the most along with the tame-ness due to the rating in the kills. Otherwise, this one is quite entertaining.Rated PG-13: Violence, Language and brief drug use.

I'm going to keep this very short. 1) Don't write a gore/ slasher type horror film and make it PG-13. 2) Bad video CG monsters are not scary in the real world. 3) If you are going to make a game about survival horror films, research the subject first so you at least SOUND like you know what you're talking about. 4) Constant, predictable startle scares do not make it a horror film.Don't bother watching it. It'd be a decent drinking game, except for the lack or gore, sex, or good violence. On the plus side, the plot is easy to follow and makes sense (as much as a movie about a video game that kills you can be.) There are some cool moments when the characters blend the real world and the game together, but they are very few and are all in the last 30 minutes of the movie. The characters are poorly fleshed out, despite the bad attempt at a flash back, and mostly unlikeable. I do not recommend it.

Stay Alive is set in Louisiana & starts late one night as Loomis Crowley (Milo Ventimiglia) plays a demo version of a new horror survival computer game called Stay Alive based around the legend of killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory, Loomis becomes engrossed in the game but his character soon dies by being hanged. Back in reality Loomis is shocked to find two of his friends murdered & he also ends up dead, hanging from a light cable from the ceiling just like in the game. A close friend of Loomis named Hutch (Jon Foster) is devastated by the death of his friend & meets Abigail (Samaire Armstrong) at the funeral & the two comfort each other, while at the funeral Hutch is given some games belonging to Loomis including Stay Alive. Hutch & some of his friends decide to pay homage to Loomis & have a marathon session on Stay Alive but it soon becomes clear that the game is haunted & that if your character dies in the game you die exactly the same way in reality...Co-written & directed by William Brent Bell this is available in two distinct & different versions, the first is the PG rated theatrical cut & an Unrated director's cut on DVD which runs fifteen minutes longer & includes more gore, more profanity, more nudity & more story. Unfortunately I saw this on telly & they played the shorter PG version so that's the one I will be basing my comment on, I am sure the Unrated cut is better but what can I do? Anyway, a lot of recent horror films have been based upon video games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil & House of the Dead but Stay Alive takes a slightly different approach & bases it's story around a spooky video game called Stay Alive. The premise is rather silly when you sit down & think about it, the ghost of a centuries old murderer is resurrected by a video game & kills anyone who plays it. It sounds silly & to be honest it is but the script takes itself extremely seriously, the dialogue is quite stiff & as a whole the film is rather drab & hard to relate to. The character's are all clichéd Hollywood teens, the death's in the PG version are tame & mostly off screen while the Stay Alive game itself doesn't even look that good. Also what about the ending? The ending in which Hutch & Abigail were meant to have stopped the ghost only for it turn up just before the end credits, that makes everything Hutch & Abigail did during the last thirty minutes totally pointless & for nothing. Also the subplot with the police is completely dropped by the hour mark too, I suppose it moves along at a decent pace & the almost comical premise could have had potential but the tameness of it doesn't help neither does serious tone.There are various cutaway scenes of the game in action, as I said I don't thin it even looks like a particularly good game but then again what do I know. While Countess Elizabeth Bathory was indeed a real person who bathed in human blood to stop herself ageing during the 17 Century in Hungary but the script here says she lived in the 19th Century in a Louisiana plantation & therefore totally ignoring any historic fact. Why keep the Bathory name but change just about every other know fact her?Apparently shot in 25 days just before hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans this had a supposed budget of about $9,000,000 & has decent enough production values & is well made if a little overblown at times, a bit more subtlety might have helped some of the scarier moments. The acting is alright, nothing amazing but the teen cast do OK.Stay Alive isn't a great film, this PG version has no gore & the whole concept is rather silly & outlandish with no explanation behind who made the game & not much more about why Bathory is haunting a video game. Silly & dumb but at least it's short & I would think that the UNrated version is much, much better.