Product Details

• Actors: Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Jimmi Simpson, Wendell Pierce
• Directors: William Brent Bell
• Writers: William Brent Bell, Matthew Peterman
• Producers: Adam Del Deo, Adolfo Martínez Pérez, Anna Mastro, Becki Cross Trujillo, David Manpearl
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• 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
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Hollywood
• DVD Release Date: September 19, 2006
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JOWW
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,697 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  #43 in	Movies & TV > Horror > Teen Terror
  #82 in	Movies & TV > Horror > Slasher Flicks

• For more information about "Stay Alive - The Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (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

IN THEATERS MARCH 24 2006 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 escalates past PG-13 levels but the scare tactics are adept while the Countess herself with pasty skin and high-necked red dress is a movie monster worthy of canonization.System Requirements:Runtime: 85 minutes Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: PG-13 UPC: 786936709384 Manufacturer No: 05102600

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Play's the Thing, April 19, 2006

By	Dark Mechanicus JSG "Black Ops Teep" (Fortified Bunker, USSA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, especially for gamers, January 25, 2008

By	Pugmom "lover of dogs, books and horror movies" (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Zero stars, December 29, 2006

By	Patrick (Wisconsin, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

First of all, when I put the DVD in up comes a menu and "characters" is automatically selected. Normally, the option to play the movie is selected so I had to scroll down to it. I watched the movie, it was horrible. After the movie I went back to the menu to find out what "characters" was. I find out you can customize a character, his clothes and weapon. There were even rules to play a game. So I thought the DVD might not be a total waste if it includes a game. Wrong. The object of the game is to select the right character with the right shirt and right weapon. I spent 10min doing this. When I finally got it right, all I got was a different menu screen. What the??? The creators REALLY wanted people to hate this movie didn't they?

I would have thought that a movie with such high caliber actors such as Frankie Muniz would at least have decent picture quality. But blurry shots run rapid though this flick. One second the picture is clear, the next blurry, the one after that clear. It's like that through the whole movie.

This movie follows every horror movie cliché with all the "I saw that coming a mile away" scenes. There are absolutely no scares. The only thing that keeps this movie from being boring is that it's so ridiculous. In the movie the guy who created the killer game said that the way to scare people is to add realism to the story. I agree. So why is this movie so lame and unbelievably stupid? A killer video game? Do ghosts really know a thing about Playstation?

And the game visuals are insulting to anybody who has ever played video games. No game looks like that or plays like that. When a character is running, the camera is usually behind them. That way, you know where you're going. But in this movie, when a character is running, the camera is in front. It's things like that, that annoyed me throughout this terrible movie.