Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great movie, especially for gamers, January 25, 2008
I seem to be in the minority, but I thought this movie was awesome. Maybe it's because I play a lot of computer games and I thought the premise of a killer video game was really clever (maybe not unique, but well done.)
The plot revolves around a mysterious video game being tested by a couple of game testers. No one seems to know its origin, but it soon becomes apparent that when you play the game and your character dies, you soon meet the same fate in real life. The game is based on the real-life serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, a 16th century Hungarian countess who killed and tortured hundreds of girls. The movie takes some liberty with the facts, such as having The Countess, as she's called, move to America, where she finds the requisite spooky old manor to inhabit. The gamers finally figure out what's going on and find the real-life burial place of the Countess. One part I found cool was that while one character played the game on his laptop, he instructed the other one what to do in the actual castle. I found the blending of game and "reality" very well-done and intriguing. I won't spoil the ending, but the heroes eventually find the body of the actual Countess, and guess what- she's not dead! (surprise) There is a pretty cool final scene where they battle this vicious vixen, who I thought was one of the coolest movie monsters I've seen in a while.
Also included on this DVD is a commentary track, which I found very entertaining. A mixture of teen slasher film, video come to life, and techno-thriller.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Play's the Thing, April 19, 2006
It's going to be a long weekend. You just broke up with your Chickie of the Week, you can't cook, next week at the office is gonna be Hell, new Boss, new Hellerman project, the roommate just got laid off so it looks like you are going to be financing the next three months of utilities, rent, TiVO, the works.
One of those. Now: you *could* be productive this weekend, you Schmo.
But in the end---sh*t, the weather's bad, why not lay back, get some rest, pack it in with some Wild Turkey (or JD, if that's your thing) and the latest X-Box slaughterama, and give your synapses a rest, Cochise? Why not? Life is short: you could die at any moment.
Indeed.
So you pop this little thing called "Stay Alive" in the hopper: hey, it's Bootleg! And before you know it, you're drawn into its deep, delicious, sick little St. Vitus dance of antebellum plantations and blood-slurping countesses and those lonely, forlorn groves of cyprus trees, and as you maneuver through crypts and tombs and catacombs, your crazy week and everything else---the rent, the surly landlord, what the h*ll you're doing with your life---starts to fall away.
And that's when something shifts. Something moves---fast. Something in the blue-black shadows of the kitchen.
But there's no one else in the apartment but you, you know?
Well, *was*: now there's you...and It.
That is "Stay Alive", boiled down to its guts: a bunch of twenty-somethings get ahold of this sick little bootleg video game based on the wild and woolly life and times of Elizabeth Bathory, the 16th-century "Blood Countess" who amused herself by bathing the blood of maidens she had slaughtered.
I went in expecting nothing more than a reeking turd, and was sufficiently creeped out. H*ll, I'm looking forward to the unrated DVD: "Stay Alive" delivered in its forlorn, decayed, worn-down locations, its seedy, crawly, pre-Katrina New Orleans, its solid cast (with the exception of Sophia Bush, whose skanky 'alternative' Goth/slacker chick October---with her cheek-wart/cancer & scabby knees made me nauseous---I could have done without) carries the day and---astonishingly---made me actually care about what sick, nasty fate was about to befall our heroes.
And what about little Billy Slaughter (Rex, and man, talk about a great stage name!)---well is it just me, or does he do a middle-aged angst-ridden Mel Gibston just a bit too stunningly?
Anyway: this one has buzzing, burping game-consoles, and flitting shadows, and a mounting atmosphere of doom and dread, and competent acting, and with an unrated DVD no doubt plenty of goop and gore---frankly, I'm sold. I played, I died, I rebooted.
The glory of "Stay Alive"---helmed by William Brent Bell, who has some fine horror reflexes---is that it gets right down to the guts of what makes "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill" so damned fun: as you dig deeper into the guts of the game, you start looking over your shoulder. I mean, Jesus, *anything* could be staking you out from the shadows of the closet, right?
Game over? Nah, let's reboot.
JSG
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Should Have Been Titled "Stay Away!", March 25, 2008
Another moronic Gen Y PG-13 horror film that isn't scary, isn't well acted, isn't well written, and isn't interesting in the least. This movie fails on all levels. I imagine this turkey was strictly a tax write-off for the movie studio. In that sense it succeeds beautifully.
I'm not going into the plot or any of that (what plot?) as I'm sure other reviews here cover those aspects of the film. I'm just here to save you any money you may spend to purchase this waste of celluloid, as well as give you the precious 85 minutes of your life I lost watching this piece of excrement. You have been warned!
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