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Stay Alive

Derivative horror film warns gamers of wasting their lives

By TOM MEEK | March 28, 2006

1.0 Stars

STAY ALIVE: The pre-Katrina backdrop is the best part.

No, not the awful 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever but an awful, reality-blurring horror flick that offers little you haven’t seen before in Final Destination, The Ring, or even FeardotCom. You play the title video game, and when it’s game over, you die. Those who sign on are pitted against a witch named Elizabeth Bathory (the movie doesn’t mention it, but Erzsébet Báthory was a 16th-century Transylvania countess who killed virgins for their blood and an alleged inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and her army of zombie schoolgirls — who all look like Samara from The Ring. A bootleg version of the game lands in the hands of five hipsters with names like Hutch, Swink, and October. Everything goes as you’d expect, including the direction by William Brent Bell, which steals every cheap bump-in-the-dark cliché it can. The most intriguing aspects of the film are the pre-Katrina New Orleans setting and its unintended message that video games are a waste of life.

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