STAY ALIVE

STAY ALIVE
By Larra

In the days of remakes and PG-13 horror, Stay Alive didn’t really have much gas in my pre-judged opinion. After having to sit through such crap as Doom and House of the Dead, I was truly dreading this next version in the game-turned-movie ‘thingy’. Well, I can honestly say that I was very wrong to pre-judge. I truly believe that this is one of the better game-turned-movies that I have seen to date.

After playing a not-yet-released horror-survival game called “Stay Alive”, “Loomis” ( Milo Ventimiglia, “Jess” from Gilmore Girls) calls his best friend “Hutch” (Jon Foster) to come over and check out this great game he has discovered, but, before “Hutch” can even get a foot out the door, “Loomis” and two roommates are found dead.

After attending “Loomis”’ funeral, “Hutch” is given a bag of computer games that “Loomis”’ parents don’t want around the house, one of those games just happens to be “Stay Alive”. Upon returning home, “Hutch” gathers together his squad of gamers: “October” (Sophia Bush), “Miller” (Adam Goldberg), “Phineas” ( Jimmi Simpson) and “Swink” (Frankie Muniz), together they start to play “Stay Alive” via internet multi-player.

Not realizing that spoken-word-technology hasn’t yet arrived, the gamers ‘speak’ the words aloud at the beginning of the game, which just happen to be from Mrs. Bathory’s diary, therefore conjuring-up the evil Mrs. Bathory’s undead spirit.

You see, the game “Stay Alive”, is based on the ‘ghost story’ of Countess Elizabeth Bathory; a vain woman who never wanted to grow old. She hunted for victims in the dead of night, seeking the blood of the young to maintain her own youth. One-by-one, each player is killed, not only in the game, but in real life…… Is real-life mimicking the game---or is it vice-versa?

Quick, to the point and with a surprisingly solid story, Stay Alive is the better of the ‘game-turned-movies’. Loads of creepy images, tons of jump-&-scare scenes and only a brief passing of ‘mushiness’, Stay Alive is the best ‘gamer-movie’ to date in my opinion.

Watch out! Technology is evolving and so are the spookies!