Stay Alive

Stay Alive
Theatrical release poster
Directed by William Brent Bell
Produced by Peter Schlessel
James D. Stern
Matthew Peterman
McG
Written by William Brent Bell
Matthew Peterman
Starring Jon Foster
Samaire Armstrong
Frankie Muniz
Jimmi Simpson
Milo Ventimiglia
Sophia Bush
Adam Goldberg
Music by John Frizzell
Cinematography Alejandro Martinez
Edited by Mark Stevens
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures (North America)
Universal Pictures (international)
Release date
 March 24, 2006
Running time
 85 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $20 million[1]
Box office $27.1 million[2]

Stay Alive is a 2006 American slasher film directed by William Brent Bell, who co-wrote it with Matthew Peterman. The film was produced by McG, and released on March 24, 2006 in the United States. It was the first film in five years released by Hollywood Pictures, and also Disney's only slasher film (not counting any from Dimension Films before 2005).

Plot

After playing a video game titled Stay Alive, Loomis Crowley, his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend are killed in the same way as their character's were killed in the game. In Loomis' case he is pushed through a bannister and hung from a chandelier by a computerised woman in a red dress.

Whilst at work Hutch, a friend of Loomis' receives a call informing him of his death (which is ruled a murder). Hutch meets Abigail at Loomis' funeral and then visits an internet cafe owned by his friend, October and her brother Phineas, both avid gamers. Hutch had received a satchel bag containing some of Loomis' possessions at the funeral from his deceased friend's sister. Phineas, whilst rooting through the bag finds the Stay Alive game and they decide to play it as a group. Abigail and another friend, Swink, join in, with Miller playing online from his office. The game is set in a derelict mansion on Garouge Plantation, but it will not start until the six players recite "The Prayer of Elizabeth," a request for "all who resist" to perish so that their blood might keep her young. The players then fight through a cemetery of evil ghost children, heading toward a mausoleum and tower. Miller is directed by the game to pick up a rose, as a reader of occult literature, October explains that undead spirits cannot move across wild roses. In the tower, Abigail locates Elizabeth's diary with the prayer inside it, while Hutch notices that all the mirrors in the game are broken. Separated from the others, Miller finds a basement torture room full of undead girls and throws the rose to dispel the spirits. Now out of roses, the woman in red stabs and kills Miller's unprotected character. The group decides to stop playing for the night. Minutes later, the woman in red appears in Miller's office and kills him by stabbing him in the neck with conjoined scissor blades like the ones in the game.

Two detectives, Thibodeaux and King, question Hutch about the homicides. Hutch realizes that Loomis and Miller played Stay Alive right before they died, and that they died the same way as their game characters. Later, October researches Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the woman in red, a real-life murderer. Bathory would drain young women of blood, bathing in it to maintain her youth. Her weakness was mirrors, because she could not stand to see herself growing old. Elsewhere, Phineas decides to play alone. Before his character can be run down by a black horse-drawn carriage, Phineas pauses the game so his character does not die. Although he believes he is safe, he is ultimately killed in real life by the same horse carriage. The survivors agree to stop playing Stay Alive until they can learn more about it. However, Detective King, a former gamer, ignores Swink's warning and plays until Bathory rips his character's head apart with a trap. Undaunted, King tries to find Stay Alive at a gaming store, but the clerk has never heard of it. After returning to his car, King is killed the same way his character died in the game.

Hutch and Abigail search Loomis' house and learn that Jonathan Malkus is the creator of Stay Alive. October has discovered that the real Countess Bathory was locked in the tower of her estate as punishment for her gruesome acts and vowed to return one day for revenge. A resurrected Bathory haunted the school at Garouge Plantation, killing many girls and keeping a diary. October reveals that the Countess can only be killed by driving three nails into her body to trap her evil soul. Outside Loomis' house, October sees the countess enter a house that is under construction and follows her inside. October tries shooting the countess with a nail gun but this is ineffective due to her being transparent. October is hung upside down and her throat is slashed, killing her. Hutch and the others arrive too late to save October, leaving Hutch devastated. The three survivors realize that once the game has begun, it can play by itself. Swink volunteers to stay in a van and play the game on his laptop to distract Bathory, while Hutch and Abigail search Malkus' house. They learn Malkus' house is actually on Garouge Plantation, Bathory's estate. Swink discovers he can cause items in the game to appear in reality.

Swink leads Hutch through the cemetery towards the tower, while Abigail returns to a hidden room she had found earlier in the game. Abigail finds the blades used by Bathory, who then attacks her. Swink guides Hutch to Abigail, while throwing roses at the Countess in the game to hold her off. The Countess begins to cheat and locks Swink out of the van, while her carriage rides toward his character. Swink breaks into the van and moves his character just in time, but Bathory and her carriage come to kill him in real life, even though his character is still alive. Swink runs across a field, and falls into a patch of rosebushes as the Countess exits her carriage, with her blades in hand. Hutch and Abigail return to the van to find Swink's character dead.

Hutch and Abigail take the laptop and some of the wild roses, which they drop to deter undead children as they cross the cemetery to a mausoleum-type passageway leading to the tower. Hutch and Abigail enter Bathory's torture chamber but become separated by a door. At Abigail's urging, Hutch continues without her to perform the ritual on Bathory's body. Bathory's phantom then attacks Abigail, who has one rose left. At the top of the tower, Hutch finds the preserved, inert body of Elizabeth Bathory and hammers three nails into it, after which the evil spirit stops attacking Abigail. When Bathory's body reanimates, Hutch retreats and knocks over an oil lamp, spilling oil across the floor. Recalling that the Countess hates mirrors, Hutch uses his reflective silver laptop to repel her before setting the room ablaze. Swink, still alive and carrying more roses, bursts in with Abigail and rescues Hutch. As Bathory's body burns, the three leave the tower.

Meanwhile, the gaming store clerk from earlier is excitedly unpacking a box full of the now newly released video game Stay Alive.

Cast

Box office

Stay Alive was released in U.S. theaters on March 24, 2006. The film opened at #3 in the U.S. box office with $10.7 million that first weekend. It ultimately grossed a total of $23.08 million in the United States.[2] The movie grossed a total of over $27.1 million worldwide.[2]

Critical reaction

The theatrical version received negative critical reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 24 out of 100, based on 17 reviews.[3] Rotten Tomatoes holds this film with a 9% "rotten" rating.[4]

Writing for Newsday, John Anderson commented that "'Stay Alive' spends a lot of time inside the video game system, and what will terrify the audience very early on is the realization that there's better acting in the video game than on the big screen."[5] Gregory Kirschling of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D− and commented, "this dopey movie keeps flouting its own rules, so that one character who dies in the game gets to live, while poor suckers get offed for real even though we never saw their Game Overs."[6] Meanwhile, writing for Variety, Anderson concluded: "Seldom is there anything close to real passion or panic on display here from cast members."[7]

DVD release

The DVD was released in the United States on September 19, 2006. It was made available in an unrated edition (100 minutes) and a "13" edition (85 minutes). The 15 minutes of new unrated footage include a new character and subplot. The unrated edition features more adult material. As of December 2011, 874,827 DVD units have been sold, bringing in $13,636,869 in revenue.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Stay Alive (2006) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Stay Alive (2006). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  3. ↑ "Stay Alive Movie Reviews, Ratings, Credits". Metacritic.
  4. ↑ "Stay Alive (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
  5. ↑ John Anderson (March 26, 2006). "'Stay Alive': The videogame gorefest is a rather lethargic exercise in mayhem". Hartford Courant. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008.
  6. ↑ "Film Review". Entertainment Weekly. March 29, 2006.
  7. ↑ Anderson, John (March 24, 2006). "Film Review". Variety. Archived from the original on January 3, 2007.
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