Stay Alive film review

STAY ALIVE

Built around a strong premise, Stay Alive never satisfactorily exploits its potential. The idea of contestants dying the same gruesome death as their characters in a video game is one that, on the surface at least, harbours plenty of pulse-racing possibilities. But William Brent Bell's inability as a scriptwriter is surpassed only by his ineptitude as a director, with the result that Stay Alive is a jumbled mess more inclined to induce a yawn than a scream.

Bell and his co-writer Matthew Peterman have turned to one of horror's legendary figures in the hope of adding some historical credence, but using Elizabeth Bathory, the notorious Hungarian Blood Countess who is considered the inspiration behind Bram Stoker's Dracula, as the central character in the video game, adds little more than confusion of which there is plenty.

When two people die in mysterious circumstances that mirror exactly the way their characters die in the new video game Stay Alive, a mutual friend Hutch (Jon Foster) and four other "gamers", Abigail (Samaire Armstrong), Swink (Frankie Muniz), October (Sophia Bush) and her brother Phineus (Jimmi Simpson), endeavour to find out the connection between their deaths and the mysterious game.

But the pretty young things' days are numbered from the moment they first play the game. As they go about their quest to find the cause of the game-related deaths, they too start meeting with grisly ends. The specific details of their gory demises however are lost amidst the shadowy lighting and infuriating editing which cloud and confuse the critical moments. After the suspenseful if cliched build-up to the impending murders, the incidents themselves are a severe anti-climax.

There seems to be a penchant of late for casting horror films with lots of beautiful youngsters. The reasons are obvious. They look better than Bela Lugosi for one and also, by setting out with sufficient numbers, you can afford to lose a few along the way. One problem with Stay Alive is that none are sufficiently endearing to cause you to mourn their loss. "This can't be happening," Hutch cries out at one point. "But it is," comes Abigail's plaintive cry. Watching Stay Alive, it's easy to know how they felt. And judging by the ending teaser, it's going to be happening again. Don't say you weren't warned.

Kevin Murphy