Stay Alive Review Country : USA Year: 2006 Genre: Horror / Cybernatural Format: Cinema Running Time: 85 minutes Distributor: Hollywood Pictures A malevolent video game plagues a group of post-modern friends who learn an unbearable truth: to die in the game is to die in real life.... Credits Directed by William Brent Bell. Written by William Brent Bell and Matthew Peterman. Starring Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Jimmi Simpson, Wendell Pierce and Frankie Muniz. This is the type of film which has considerable tarnish before it even makes it out of the gate. It's teen-based horror. It revolves around a trendy, stripmall-friendly concept. It has a prominent teen television actor in a principle role. And, God help us, it's rated PG-13. What a happy surprise, then, to find that Stay Alive is actually quite decent and downright creepy in places. The cold open features a character named Loomis Crowley (a horror concoction of a name if ever there was one) playing a violent horror video game in his bedroom and becoming increasingly creeped out after his character is killed in the game and he begins hearing weird noises in the house. Strange shadows and figures are briefly glimpsed scurrying just out of his sight (a la the spooks in White Noise), and the young man finds that his two houseguests (who had been playing the game earlier) have been brutally murdered in their bedroom. He is then dispatched in short order by an unseen force--and in the exact method as his character in the game was killed. At Loomis' funeral, his close friend Hutch (Jon Foster), who was the last person Loomis spoke to over the phone prior to his murder, receives a satchel of a few of his late friend's belongings. Among the items are a beta-test version of the new horror-related video game "Stay Alive," which sounds too much like a Barry Gibb song title, but never mind. Hutch also meets Abigail (Samaire Armstrong), a free-spirit friend of Loomis' who is also grieving. Being video game enthusiasts themselves, they opt to convene at Hutch's apartment with his gaming pals to try out the curious video game, also interfacing with Hutch's yuppie boss (Adam Goldberg), who wants to participate online from his downtown New Orleans office. The game begins with an occult incantation of sorts and a short backstory purporting to be about the legendary Elizabeth Bathory, a cruel and Satanic figure who tortured and murdered young women in an endeavor to preserve her own physical beauty. Why this true legend of a 16th Century Transylvanian countess would be rewritten to place her in a 19th Century New Orleans plantation homestead is anyone's guess....maybe because New Orleans is a cool place to set horror movies. At any rate, the boss dies in the game and voila! He is found by police the next morning in his office, dispatched in the same manner as in the game. Hutch and his gaming friends, including the obnoxious Phineas (Jimmi Simpson), his overprotective sister October (Sophia Bush) and brainy computer nerd Swink (Frankie Muniz) begin to research the Countess Bathory legend as they become increasingly aware that the "Stay Alive" game has taken on a life of itself, blurring the line between reality and fantasy. The game continues to play with or without their participation, and the surviving players begin to die off one by one. There is also some backstory about the pyrophobic Hutch and the tragic childhood loss of his mother in a housefire--which may have left him with burn injuries, judging by the scar tissue seen briefly on his back in one scene, although the script doesn't specify. This is shorthand for the predictable plot device that he will be required to utilize fire to help vanquish the demon later on, but we knew that. That's why the good Lord made movie cliches around the same time He made little green apples. Foster has the task of carrying the film performance-wise, and he's mostly effective at creating a sympathetic lead, the vagaries of his fire tragedy notwithstanding. Armstrong is a sufficient leading lady, and as Swink, Muniz effectively sheds his "Malcolm In The Middle" persona for a much geekier type of science brain. A clever highlight of the film's third act includes Swink playing the game on a laptop as a diversion while Hutch infiltrates the old Bathory estate; actions in the game dictate what happens in real life, so when, for instance, Hutch needs a crowbar to pry off a lock, Swink taps in a control and hey presto! There's suddenly such a tool at Hutch's disposal. Imagine what you could do with such a device if, say, it's a few days before payroll and you're short a few bucks for the rent and need some quick cash....okay, I'm thinking aloud again. The reveal of the Countess Bathory apparition made flesh is fairly spine-chilling, and some of the bloody setpieces (as well as a certain "hot pig sex" scene) give the impression that Stay Alive was originally shot to be a hard R picture and then trimmed for the easier-sell PG-13, possibly even as an afterthought. In fact, haphazard editing may have be responsible for the deletion of some story elements that would have fleshed out the narrative much more nicely. I know an 85-minute running time makes it possible for the local cineplex to schedule one more screening of it per day than if it had run closer to two hours, but....damn. Still, the erratic cuts, assuming that's even the case, do tighten the pacing, and director William Brent Bell makes good use of the eerie locale, including some effective color correction during post to enhance the surreal "are they in the game or in reality" nature of the tale. The ghostly figures that scuttle about have become something of a cliche themselves, but as a nice touch, at least the CGI here is supposed to look like digital creations, since it is a video game at the center of the mayhem. Well worth the buck at a second-run theatre (and arguably not the worst matinee-priced ticket you can buy during its first run), Stay Alive is certainly worth a look. Mark my words on this point, however: PG-13 or no, this thing as "Unrated DVD" practically embossed on it. OFFICIAL SITE DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS Review by Petch Lucas, for Pitofhorror.com