Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9377 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, Spanish, Czech, Bulgarian
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

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

Synopsis
This pop culture-laden fright-fest takes the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary and relocates it in the inherently creepy locale of New Orleans. The usual cast of motley and none-too-bright teenagers is assembled and attached to quirky names--smartass Phineas (Jimmi Simpson) and his Goth-girl sister, October (Sophia Bush), hunky protagonist Hutch (Jon Foster), and tech-head Swink (Frankie Muniz), to name a few--and they all have one thing in common: the love of gaming. When Hutch's best friend Loomis (Milo Ventimiglia) is a victim in a violent massacre, Hutch ends up with the game he was playing just before he died. Called 'Stay Alive', the game is technically illegal and Hutch and his friends can't resist booting it up. The game resurrects the Countess, who centuries ago was walled up in her tower when her crimes were discovered (she is said to have brutally murdered 650 servant girls and bathed in their blood). Now, she is fulfilling her vow to return to reassume her reign of terror. This time, however, her victims are gamers who will die in the same way in life as they do in the game. The video game itself becomes a character in the film, showing off excellent 3-D, cinematic effects, and creating an effectively spooky atmosphere with a memorable, if derivative, aesthetic. The gore never gets too brutal but the scare tactics are adept, while the Countess herself, with pasty skin and high-necked red dress, is a movie monster worthy of canonisation.

Customer Reviews

[2.5]--I wish this game had took me in.............,
So that I wouldn't have to stay awake.

"Stay Alive" is a bland horror movie about a video game that kills people the same way they die inside the game. The friends that play this game soon figure this out, and then realize they must defeat the Blood Countess from the video game or accept their fates.

We've had video tapes in "The Ring," a deadly website in "Fear Dotcom," and of course video games movies such as this one. "Stay Alive" does some things well; the character development is quite a bit deeper than it usually would be in a horror movie. We really see into some of the characters feelings and past and get to know them all quite well, so the viewers may gain some emotions for them. The film is also very suspenseful. Tense, unnerving moments are frequently played through the film, accompanied by unsettling, creepy music. There are plenty of jumps and jolts for the viewer. This can be ideal once or twice, but these false scares that Hollywood seems to enjoy overplaying in horror films nowadays, wears thin in Stay Alive.

The camera will tend to provide sharp angles or quick flashes in order to give viewers a very quick glimpse of a demon or witch, and try to scare them with this sudden burst on the screen. Why? The gore is obviously very weak because of the film's certificate. The script to Stay Alive is very cheesy and quite laughable, and the characters tend to play it too melodramatically and confusingly. Also, clichés come in from every direction, for instance people wandering around on their own in search of a strange noise or if they have spotted a figure in the dark, they will go and investigate it.

However the computer graphics used for the video game segments are rather impressive and look colorful and sharp, working well with the other parts of the film. But overall, there is just not enough to hold out on with this film. Stretching at just over a hundred minutes, it won't be a battle to Stay Alive, but rather, Stay Awake.

Eugh! No!
Strictly for easily scared, lonely, dull computer nerds; if you're one of them then wahey, you'll love it!

Despite the fact it's rubbish, awful, unorigional, dry, dull, and rubbish again, the Malcom In The Middle guy is in it to top the whole thing off!

This, apart from An American Haunting (which is possibly the worst horror of all time) is one of the worst horror movies to be released in a lllooonnnggg while. But still, give it a go and see what I mean, waist 12 quid of your money to see this rubbish and be pleasantly surprised (that i was so right) x

Abandon all logic and reason, ye who watch Stay Alive
With its allusions to the infamous Countess Bathory and its promising (albeit less than original) premise of a computer game that really takes on a life (and assorted deaths) of its own, Stay Alive was a movie I just had to watch. I know some people absolutely hated the movie (one critic, Christopher Smith, said "It boasts an absurd premise and runs with it as if it were running with scissors down a very steep hill"), it's certainly true that the plot basically hangs together with imagination alone, and, yes, things really start to fall apart at the end, but I actually sort of enjoyed this movie for the most part. The video game animation was excellent, the first few scenes established some really good atmosphere, and Stay Alive does offer a slight twist on the typical slasher formula. And Sophia Bush is in it.

The story centers around a group of hard-core gamers (stereotypical one and all, from the "hero" to the geek to the goth chick to the hopelessly annoying big-mouth, in addition to a cute young lady who inexplicably joins them) who get all caught up in this new, mysterious game called Stay Alive - the very game one of their fellow gamers was playing the night he and his housemates died grisly deaths. Those victims physically died in the same way their characters were killed in the game - although Hutch (Jon Foster) and his buds don't know this when they fire the beta test CD up and have a go at the game themselves. Now, personally, I would have to wonder about a game that only starts when I recite this little chant displayed on the screen without the game having any kind of voice recognition component. Well, these guys and gals start playing the game and - you guessed it - one of them dies the same way he died in the game. Now that's definitely weird, but it could still be coincidence at this point. With Death #3, though, it's definitely time to start freaking out. Just stop playing the game, you say? Ah, if only it were that easy. The game, you see, seems to still be running on its own in some kind of weird virtual vortex or something. As if things aren't bad enough, Hutch and his friends are definite subjects of interest for the local cops and have to go on the lamb while they try to figure out a way to - wait for it - Stay Alive.

While Countess Erzebet Bathory is never mentioned by name, she is obviously the inspiration for the Blood Countess that lies at the heart of the Stay Alive video game. You remember Countess Bathory, don't you? She's the Hungarian Countess who slaughtered scores of young maidens because she thought she could sustain her youth perpetually by bathing in the blood of virgins. In the context of Stay Alive, the Blood Countess has been transferred to New Orleans and, for reasons the movie doesn't even pretend to explain, she's managed to embed her still-bloodthirsty soul into a video game. Once the gamers figure all this out, they come to the conclusion that, since reality is reflecting what happens in the game, the game must be reflecting real life as well - as in the big tower where the Countess resides. In other words, they attempt to find her mortal remains and - well, I'm not sure what the plan was, really.

I know the plot sounds pretty stupid - and, frankly, it is pretty stupid, but you can still get a kick out of Stay Alive; you just have to cast logic and realism aside and just have fun with what this movie gives you. If you can't do that, though, you will undoubtedly hate every single thing about it.