Product Details

• Actors: Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Jimmi Simpson, Milo Ventimiglia
• Directors: William Brent Bell
• Writers: William Brent Bell & Matthew Peterman
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Hollywood
• DVD Release Date: September 19, 2006
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JOWW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,015 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Stay Alive - The Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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

Product Description

Mind-bending thriller about a killer video game. The real world and the game world gruesomely collide when a group of friends play Stay Alive, a mysterious underground videogame that kills the gamer whose character dies in play. Inspired by the shocking true story of the 17th century serial killer known as the Blood Countess, the videogame gives disturbing new meaning to the phrase "game over." In a death defying race against time, the survivors must solve the mystery of the game while desperately trying to stay alive.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars BETTER THAN I THOUGHT... but not without problems November 12, 2006

By Chris Kennison VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

First of all, I didn't have too high of hopes for STAY ALIVE going in. I had heard numerous negative reviews and I can't stand the ARROGANT and works more than he deserves to FRANKIE MUNIZ. By the way, Frankie must have the greatest agent of all time. Not only does he keep working, but he manages to get a pivotal part in this movie when he should have been one of the death scenes.

STAY ALIVE actually has a pretty fun premise. Ridiculous. Yes. A ripoff of THE RING. A little bit. Yet, if you can manage to remember that your watching a movie and can forget reality for a couple of hours, STAY ALIVE actually is pretty fun and actually has a really effective and scary edge to it. In fact, the whole story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Maria Kalinina) is very intriguing, disturbing and a tremendous idea to build a scary movie around. The moments when she appears, or just stands in a corner in her bright red victorian dress are frightening.

The movie centers around an underground video game that seems to reach beyond the PS2 console and effect real life. A ghost story bottled into a video game disc.

So, where does STAY ALIVE go wrong? Many places... and that's the problem. They took this incredible premise of a women who thinks the blood of young girls can keep her young, and wasted it. That to me is the biggest problem. They wasted a FANTASTIC chance to do something cool and unique, and instead did what all scary movies do... wasted time explaining and showing the unknowing characters trying to get each other to believing each other and much worse, getting the authorities to believe them.

Instead, they should have spent more time INSIDE THE GAME!! They should have abandoned the real life encounters and delved into a COOL WORLDish situation. They should have teamed up with the animators of the FINAL FANTASY MOVIES and did something cool, and more importantly, something unforgettable.

The story behind the game was enough to suffice. It was the coolest part of the movie, but 30 minutes in, the characters strapped into their headsets, grabbed their controllers, played for 3 minutes and quit.

This is where the movie, to me, didn't stay alive. It died. It lost its edge and got boring. Up to the point when they got into the game, I was glued. I liked it, despite goofball Frankie Muniz sitting there with his viser on sideways and talking. The moment the movie quit relying on the game to tell the story, the movie died.

Finally, sure, I didn't like that Frankie Muniz was in the movie, but the fact that he or his agent managed to talk the directors or writers into giving him this pivotal part at the end of the film and made him seem like the hero of the film seemed like just that... like an agent or himself had used their pull to weasel him into that final scene. Ridiculous and unnecessary. It was enough for me to hate the movie, just the fact that he didn't buy it.

This could have been a really good film, but the creators made a lot of ill choices and it should have been better. I took 2 stars away for the lack of video game realiance, and another for Frankie Muniz not dieing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars GAME OVER July 1, 2012

By Michael TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

Personally I would have preferred the title "Game Over" or "The Lady of Blood" as opposed to "Stay Alive." The title is too similar to the Bee Gees hit "Staying Alive," which caused that tune to stick in my head during the film. The movie is the cliche, "you die in the game, you die in real life" plot. I can't wait for nanotechnology to take off.

There is a crew of young adults who find out about the negative issues of the game after several of their friends have died from it and they are in the middle of playing the game. Hutch (Jon Foster) is the main character and a big gamer. Due to a childhood accident he is afraid of fire, even so much as someone lighting a cigarette. This should have been better developed. October (Sophia Bush) is his girlfriend and a bit of a goth. Her brother is Phineus (Jimmi Simpson) who is the realist in the group and doesn't but into the game/death idea. Frankie Muniz is Swink, who appears to be a geek who quickly respects the game, a character that needed to be better developed also. Abigail (Samaire Armstrong) provides the eye candy and is an outsider to the group who invites herself in. This aspect wasn't really utilized.

The film is scarier in the beginning. It doesn't maintain the scare factor because it does the same stuff over and over, so they tend to add some gore to it. It adds some light comedy to mix, I think it could have used a 2-3 more light scenes as contrast to the intense ones. Soft 4 stars due to overuse of plot.

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bomb, brief sex, very brief nudity (Maria Kalinina)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Stay Awake, I Mean Alive: A Thrilling (Yawn) Horror Flick (Yawn) That's All Too Familiar February 10, 2012

By K. Harris HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWER

Format:Amazon Instant Video

I like a good scary movie as much (or more) than the next person. But, truth be told, they aren't that easy to find anymore. Still, as I recently told a friend, I guess I'll watch anything! You never know what unexpected delights might be awaiting you, even in the unlikeliest of places. Because that's just it! I have hope, hope that I'll be pleasantly surprised. That hope abandoned me as I settled in to view "Stay Alive." Let's be honest, this movie is no worse than dozens of other movies that are virtually indistinguishable from it in terms of casting and plotting. Basically, an attractive TV ready ensemble is knocked off one by one. That's the same description for about 5671 other movies as well. My reaction to "Stay Alive" becomes apathetic because, while it may be competently made, there are absolutely no original ideas or images presented.

The hook of "Stay Alive" is intriguing enough. A new videogame unleashes a murderous spell. If you are killed in the game, you will meet a similar gruesome end in the real world. Bummer. So, of course, our young cast all play the game. And they start dropping dead. One would hope, at least, for some creative carnage. But not here, seen it all before. The silliness that ensues include the requisite bumbling police investigation, the burgeoning romance, and the clues that lead to an immense estate (that apparently no one knows about) that resembles the environment in the game. I would say that the graphics in the game are the most visually interesting aspect of "Stay Alive," but this seems rather silly--I'd just play a game if this was what was most important.

Listen, I didn't hate this movie. The problem is that it barely registers at all. Jon Foster and Samaire Armstrong are likable and attractive enough. Foster, especially, has potential and talent. He was great in the overlooked "The Door in the Floor" with Jeff Bridges and a number of other projects. And Armstrong proved appealing in her TV roles on "The OC" and "Entourage." I wish them well with future choices.

You can watch "Stay Alive" if you like these films. You might even find it passable entertainment. But as it blends into the hundreds of similar films, is there anything that will cause you to remember this one fondly? Nothing stood out for me, except maybe that Frankie Muniz (from "Malcolm in the Middle") shouldn't wear a visor. But really, no one needs to wear a visor--or should, for that matter! I didn't need to see "Stay Alive" to come to that conclusion. Just like everything else in this routine and perfectly ordinary picture, I'd figured everything out that I needed to within 5 minutes. KGHarris, 03/07.