List Price:   $14.99 Price:   $13.99 find out more information

Buy posters from this movie

“Sweet Sebastian Bach, I wanna play!” says obnoxious faux-hipster Finn (Jimmi Simpson) about prototype video game “Stay Alive.” The game, which also lends its name to the film at large, is one of those generic first-person shooters that leads players into the large, dark Victorian home of the Blood Countess and her legion of undead girls, but with the clear graphics and free-roaming game play, it looks like a better version of the early “Resident Evil” games. If we can go into the theater and test the game for two hours, I’m with Finn. Sweet Steve Perry, don’t tease us any longer.

But sweet Scary Spice, can we pass on the movie? The cookie-cutter PG-13-horror canon is already overflowing with enough movies that squander an interesting premise on bad dialogue and cliché scares. Elizabeth Bathory, the real Hungarian countess that served as the video game inspiration, was rumored to be a cruel, sadistic woman that tortured her young servant girls, often to their death. She would beat them, stick them with pins and spikes, rip portions of their flesh away with her teeth and freeze them to death in the snow covered fields surrounding her castle. But while her 16th Century atrocities were extremely vicious, she could serve as an interesting villain, especially when terrorizing stupid teenage gamers.

Sweet Susanna Hoffs, though, director/co-writer William Brent Bell is having none of those interesting elements ruin his hackneyed horror. The cast, which is primarily composed of pretty TV teens, just haphazardly bump into each other in their pursuit of genuine scares. In the opening segment, Loomis (Milo Ventimiglia of “Gilmore Girls”), the gamer originally changed with beta-testing “Stay Alive,” loses the game after being hung by the Countess, and retreats to his kitchen for a glass of milk. Based on a few haunted dreams and a random shadow in his kitchen, he tears up his stairs as if his life depended on it. Now, I’ve never been pursued by an evil ghost, but I have the sneaking feeling neither has Loomis, making his overreaction just that. There is no rhyme or reason for many of the characters action, other to shrug it off as poor scripting. With the exception of Finn’s line (which is very addictive, in case you couldn’t tell) and a few throw away lines from nerdy gamer Swink (Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle”), everything is clearly awkward horror movie dialogue, a combination of obvious utilitarian statements (like “It’s locked. I need a crowbar”) and overly analytical assumptions about supernatural forces from the one sci-fi Goth teen of the group, who in this case is Finn’s sister October (Sophia Bush of “One Tree Hill”).

Perhaps the most nonsensical part, however, is the misplaced romance between the two bland leads, Abigail (Samaire Armstrong of “The O.C.”) and Hutch (Jon Foster of “Life as We Know It,” the Kelly Osbourne snoozer sitcom). In the midst of watching their friends die and fleeing from a homicidal specter, the pair stop and start making out. Isn’t that typically the notice that they’re next on the hit list? Sweet Savage Garden, that means we wouldn’t be subjected to any more of this sludge. Unfortunately, “Stay Alive” is left wide open for a sequel, meaning we might get hit with sequel sludge, which, in the case of “Stay Alive,” may be a sign of the coming apocalypse. Sweet Scott Stapp! Pray for us all!

Do you have any more ideas of musicians and bands that might fill the “Sweet __________ __________” blanks? Because honestly, this game is much more fun than that “Stay Alive” one.

 del.icio.us    
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14182&reviewer=401
originally posted: 04/03/06 07:35:31
 printer-friendly format