Review - Stay Alive

How hard is it to Stay Alive . . .

. . . if you watch the movie, you will see that it is in fact very hard to Stay Alive.

So this is a little different than your typical “movie based on a video game” scenario. The game was invented within the movie as a sort of character to move the plot along. So the film wasn’t actually based on a game. Either way, it did still have that “movie based on a video game” feel to it - although it was a bit better than a lot of those types of movies.

We begin the film by watching Loomis Crowley (Milo Ventimiglia - of HEROES fame) playing this new game he is Beta testing called Stay Alive. And yes, you guessed it, the main goal of the game is to keep yourself breathing. As Loomis and his poor unfortunate house guests are to find, the cost of losing your life in the game is to lose it in real life as well. And eerily enough in the same fashion as you did whilst gaming.

Loomis’ friend, Hutch (Jon Foster), feels a tremendous amount of guilt after his friend’s death because he blew him off the night he died. He ends up hooking up with a friend of a friend of Loomis’ at the funeral, Abigail (Samarie Armstrong) - although you never quite know why he befriends her so quickly. At aforementioned funeral, Hutch also meets up with Loomis’ sister who hands over a bunch of games to him - Stay Alive is of course among the loot.

Hutch and Abigail that night hook up with his friends October (Sophia Bush), Phineas (Jimmi Simpson), Swink (Frankie Muniz) and joining via the internet is Hutch’s boss, Miller (Adam Goldberg) to play the game as their gaming friend would have wanted them to do. However, all does not turn up roses as Miller ends up the next victim of the Blood Countess (Maria Kalinina).

As his friends begin turning up dead one by one in the same fashion as they were killed in the game, Hutch finds himself in a race against time to stop the Countess from her dastardly deeds. The Countess however isn’t the most honest of gamers as Swink so eloquently points out at one point in the film by stating “Bitch that’s cheating! I’m not even dead yet.” (One of the best lines in the film).

There were some issues with the following of “the rules” in this film. Like how the game starts to play itself or the whole roses thing. It seemed to me that the roses only kept the ghosts at bay for so long as they kind of poofed away after a moment or two of being dropped to the ground. However, when one of the characters is in trouble, the roses seem to be all this character needed to Stay Alive.

Either way, it was still a pretty enjoyable flick. For as short a time as he was in the film, I really enjoyed Adam Goldberg’s performance as boss slash gamer buddy to Hutch. Jimmi Simpson was also truly believable as a prickly little gamer jerk with quite the smarmy attitude. Muniz also played the gamer nerd to a “T”. In my opinion we probably could’ve dealt without the addition of Abigail and just used October more in the movie. I am always rooting for the hot goth chick as opposed to the puff brained blondie but that might just be because I’m a brunette . . .

At any rate, if you have the chance and you are a fan of gaming or just semi-cheesy horror I would recommend watching Stay Alive. It was an interesting take on the whole video game movie idea.

Directed by
William Brent Bell

Writing creditsp
(WGA)
William Brent Bell (written by) &
Matthew Peterman (written by)

Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
Jon Foster ... Hutch
Samaire Armstrong ... Abigail
Frankie Muniz ... Swink
Jimmi Simpson ... Phineas
Wendell Pierce ... Detective Thibodeaux
Milo Ventimiglia ... Loomis Crowley
Sophia Bush ... October
Adam Goldberg ... Miller Banks
Billy Slaughter ... Rex
Nicole Oppermann ... Sarah
April Wood ... Loretta
Monica Monica ... Mrs. Crowley
Rio Hackford ... Detective King
Billy Louviere ... Fidget
J. Richey Nash ... Young Rookie (as Richey Nash)
Maria Kalinina ... Countess
Lauren Lorbeck ... Emma
Veronica Mosgrove ... News Reporter
Rick Green ... Stay Alive Game Voice-Over (voice)
James Haven ... Jonathan Malkus
Alice Krige ... The Author

rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cynthia LeBlanc ... Lady in the Park (uncredited)
Elton LeBlanc ... Man in the Park (uncredited)
Gary R. Percle Jr. ... Police Officer (uncredited)