Stay Alive

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source: Stay Alive

Stay alive is awesome. I watched it on Friday, the very first day it was released, and it was totally awesome. I can say that Stay alive is the biggest hit for horror movie this year. At first, I thought that they made another movie from a video game just like what they did to Resident evil, and Silent hill is coming out in April, 2006. But, the theme of this movie is actually portraying a game that kills everyone who's into it, and a story of countess Elizabeth Bathory is depicted Note: Countess Elizabeth Bathory really existed, look her up. The plot flow and the storyline of this movie went deliberately smooth, plus the gory and horrifying scenes were excellent as well.

First off, this movie was definitely cut to be pg-13. Some of the scenes were really short and didn't make sense. Gamers will definitely like this one. The movie isn't your pg-13 generic movie. Like most horror films this has a little character development. This movie was good for what it was, a teen horror popcorn movie. Don't expect it to be Oscar worthy. It delivered what it was supposed to, which was entertainment and some scares. The opening scene keeps you on your toes and from then on. The movie had a lot of great scares that weren't the usual gore. It kind of shows that a horror movie can deliver without the gore. There was some blood which did the movie well. The characters are somewhat developed, and develop throughout the movie until... its game over. Overall, the movie was a good horror movie. I wasn't expecting much, but I got much more. The movie is creative with what it has and the special affects are pretty good. If you're a gamer, you should watch it. If you like horror, and don't mind it being kiddy, go for it. This movie kept my attention, and for me, that's important.

The kiddie horror market continues to baffle me. Films like this get pounded by the critics as unimaginative, but them often achieve high viewer ratings on IMDb. This movie suffers low ratings in both spheres but is making money. Lots of it. The genre demands predictability: some kids die, some survive (always including and often just a boy-girl pair), and at the end, the very end we see how the evil has survived to threaten the exiting audience. I'll tell you why I went to see it, because I like movies where the "movie within" overlaps in some way with the containing movie. In this case, its a video game; same same. Some viewers compare this to "Jumanji," but in that case, the players enter the game, a fantasy world. In this case, the game enters the real world, more in the "Ringu" fashion. Is it scary? Are any of these? Who cares? What I care about is whether the folding is done coolly, like in "eXistenZ." And whether the characters are as clever as the fold. A couple of these guys were fun, but typically the girls were clones. I saw this with "I, Madman." Similar values: clever fold, boring presentation. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

OK, I actually just saw the movie today and I gotta say: it's not too bad. Yeah, it's not that scary and while the script in and of itself is mildly (very mildly) original, the dialogue and the reactions of the gamers remains hopelessly cliché. That is the world of horror, unfortunately. So, why do I like this movie? Because I didn't go to get scared (obviously, the movie is PG-13), I didn't go to critique it, though I guess that's what I'm doing now. I went to get a good hour and a half of entertainment. And, boy, was I entertained. Let's start with the premise of the movie. A group of attractive 20-something gamers find this new, underground video game called "Stay Alive" where the objective is the title. Despite the fact that the main character's friend died shortly after playing it, the gamers decide to give it a go. They find the effects creepy and fulfilling, but the fun ends there when one of their group, the main character's boss, dies in exactly the same way as his avatar in the game. It just escalates from there. Now, I'm a big fan of games with an interesting plot, so if this were a game, I would totally play it. A lot of people were complaining about the CG effects. I liked them. It was supposed to look like a video game. I realize the normal route was to have these characters look real when they step off the computer screen, but I thought it looked so much cooler when it seemed like the game itself was killing you. Some of it seemed far too reminiscent of Japanese horror, but considering that's the trend these days, I let it go. Overall, I loved the fact that the demon children and the crazy Countess looked exactly like the game until the very end. The characters themselves were fun. You had the goth chick, but what I liked about her was that she wasn't the stereotypical "I'm creepy and dark and depressed" chick that always seems to grace these movies. Then there was her brother, whom I was alternating between laughing at and wanting to hit. The main character, Hutch, I believe, was cute enough that I didn't really care whether or not he was cool. Swink, played by Frankie Muniz, was utterly adorable. The only one that I didn't get was the blonde, Abigail. Why the hell was she there? To create suspense, to be another love interest for Hutch? I really wanted her to be evil. That would have made so much sense in the long run. I mean, she shows up at Loomis' funeral and suddenly becomes buddies with Hutch and then later his new girlfriend after the goth chick dies. That entire relationship I could have done without. I would have absolutely LOVED it if she turned out to be some psycho obsessed with the game or something. But, whatever. She was decent, too. The only part of the movie that I didn't like, which always drives me nuts, is the fact that they never mention why and how the game was created. The company, apparently, was the plantation itself, but who made it? The Countess? That doesn't make sense to me. I get the idea of mixing an old ghost story with today's technology. I find that fascinating. But how does a Civil War-era ghost come up with the idea of making a video game to further her evil purpose and then manage to go through with it? Also, how did she manage to distribute it after she was supposedly destroyed? If there is one thing that can tie a movie together for me, it's a good backstory. Other than that, I found the movie enjoyable and I would definitely watch it again when it comes on TV. If you're looking for hardcore horror, look elsewhere. But if you want some fun with a great ghost story, then definitely watch this. If anything, you can have fun with rooting for who dies next.

I saw this flick this afternoon, after it opened here yesterday. And I really liked it. I saw another review that compared this to The Ring. I see what they mean ... and to me this sort of suggests the two things about this flick that I really liked the most. One is it's a good solid horror flick, built on a good solid horror story. Nothing super-original or exceptional ... just good, sound, basic scary movie type features from one end to the other. Works for me! The other thing I really liked is that it's steeped in what I take to be contemporary electronic game culture. This is a culture I really just plain don't know at all except for snippets I get here and there. I'm 52 years old and a step son introduced me years ago to a then current version of the game Doom. I sort of went nuts about it for several weeks then deleted it off my computer so I couldn't get addicted to it again. And that's my sum total personal experience with electronic gaming. But enough that watching this brought back some of the old sensations ... not in a bad way, either. And the general young adult culture of the Game that this movie depicts sure looks authentic, tho others will have to comment more reliably on that. But it's a walk through a culture that I really enjoyed. That combo ... Ring-like video Story on one hand, Here-and-Now Reality on the other ... and the way the two intersect ... horribly, this being a horror movie ... that's a sort of interlayering that I just really, really enjoy. The acting and characterizations were all solid, Munoz deserving special mention in his especially convincing geeky characterization. Cinematography was good, scripting very solid, plot very fine, all the elements worked together to make a really cool, fun horror flick set in the young folks' gaming subculture. Check it out, good movie!

OK, so you know this movie is going to be cheesy before you even go see it. It's about a game that kills you if you die in it. I already knew that, but I was hoping to be at least entertained. First off, most of the acting was actually pretty good. Some of it was terrible, but I blame the script more than the actors, some of those lines were impossible to deliver realistically. The plot was ehh, well you already know the plot. It was not the strong point of the movie, to say the least. The thing that really bothered me was the fact that the movie cut away right before everyone got killed. I guess that's what happens when you make a PG-13 horror movie. I get the feeling this movie would have been a LOT better if they had just let it get an R rating, and include all of the violence. Violence doesn't necessarily make a good movie, but in this case, what else would you watch this movie for? It doesn't build tension very well, and is generally not very scary. The makeup for the countess looks pretty good, she is a creepy looking woman. All together the movie wasn't terrible. It was at least entertaining to some extent. Don't expect to be scared unless you are a 14 year old girl. 4/10 stars.