Stay Alive

Stay Away From This Film

Main Cast: Jon Foster, Frankie Muniz, Jimmi Simpson, Sophie Bush

Director: William Brent Bell

Plot Summary: A supernatural video game starts killing all those that have played it.

Yet another teen slasher, this one takes a forbidden video game, a bunch of college kids, and the supernatural, and throws them together in a mediocre story, although the villain is memorable.

The director does take the atmosphere of Voodoo and the spiritual around New Orleans to heart, but does little to develop the characters, thus they are not interesting enough to particularly care when they get the axe. Hutch (Foster), the jock hero, Phineas (Simpson), the geek programmer, his Goth sister October (Bush), and techie Swink (Muniz) all stumble onto an illegal video game when their friend Loomis dies and passes it along to them.

The computer game drags in the spirit of an old Countess from Hungary, killed more than 600 years ago because of her evil ways. Why a game would or could somehow grab someone who knows nothing about computers is a mystery, but of course any deep logic is not required in slasher flicks.

The clueless are killed in the exact way their character are in the game, leading to a few interesting scenes where probability is severely tested. The usual story elements are hauled out here, where the kids try to figure out what is going on while dodging various attacks and spooky encounters.

I can’t say this was a great film, but it does mix video games and terror relatively effectively. The Countess is quite something: a tall, pale harpy in a red dress. She is a much more interesting character than some guy in a hockey mask. Otherwise, however, this one isn’t worth serious attention.