This is not a review, simply a warning: Stay away at all cost.

Had I not been with my girlfriend and had simply watched the movie, I wouldn't just want my money back, I'd want that hour and a half of my life back.

This isn't a horror film, this is an insult.

hell this movie blew, my girlfriend wanted to see it and I warned her that this was gonna suck, I hope she believes me from now on, I mean people were laughing through the whole damn thing, there was not one scare, and they way people died, getting trampled by a horse and carrage, C'mon, it's a horror movie not a western.  

To post something relevant about this film, here's my opinion.

I watched the Unrated DVD version of the film.The DVD had a strange character building thing that I could never figure out. If you have a clue on this one, feel free to say what it is supposed to do. I even matched up one of the characters, and it still kicked me out. Anyway...

This film takes some of the modern fun stuff and makes it evil. I guess someone took a lesson from the Japanese here. So this time, the concept is that there is a video game that is horrific and violent, but the catch is however you die in the game, that's how you will die in real life. This is understandably disturbing for those who have played and died. Then the game realizes no one is playing it anymore, so it starts playing itself to get more of them in its clutches. Now they're forced into it.

This was a great concept that played out superbly in some areas of the flm, particularly in the third act when reality and the game were actually interacting. Really cool. They even used the rumble function against us. When you hear that tell-tale controller vibration, look out.

But we were not without flaws, of course. Had ourselves a slew of horror movie stupidity to go with the cleverness which took a lot of the respect out of this film. Got your mass of characters with distinctly stereotypical personalities so you know them quickly and understand them just as fast. People knock once, and enter other people's houses. They investigate weird noises and movements. They go into dangerous places alone. When they are all alone, they say, "Hello? Is anyone there?" And it was setting itself up so well...

For the gorehound in you, you won't be totally satisfied, but you won't be totally disappointed either. There's some splatter, just not much of it, which is fine by me. I'm more into suspense than splatter anyway.

One point that was just ridiculous...where in the world does one have access to police case records and photographs that they can print off? I mean, seriously. That kind of stuff isn't public. I don't care who you are. This guy just logged onto the net and the background said FBI. My disbelief was faltering in its suspension.

Cool concept and some good scenes and moments. It did follow its own rules, though the characters were cliche. Not the worst movie of its kind, by any means, but it could have been much better.

And to address death by carriage: it fit within the confines of the plot and was helped the weirdness factor the movie carried in several places.

Quoted from George Willson One point that was just ridiculous...where in the world does one have access to police case records and photographs that they can print off? I mean, seriously. That kind of stuff isn't public. I don't care who you are. This guy just logged onto the net and the background said FBI. My disbelief was faltering in its suspension.

I thought that was stupid too, but after watching it again, I noticed Bossman (Hutch's boss, the cooky guy who died offsscreen with scissors to the throat) and Hutch worked at a lawfirm (or something like that. I don't now much about that stuff). Hutch wouldn't have access to police records but Bossman would. Hutch researched it at Bossman's place, on his computer, which is why he had easy access. Then on the commentary they said Bossman and Hutch were good friends and that is why he knew his password, etc.

I have no idea why the crime scene of a recent murder wasn't guarded at all, though.

I still disliked the movie, and the unrated too: Angelina Jolie's brother playing a crazy game developer?? That turned me off almost instantly.

Oh, and by the way, George: If you select the correct combination of clothes, shirt, and weapon, you could unlock a new DVD menu.

Stay Alive is a gamers wet dream. Watching that movie it made me wish that really was a game. Even IMDB is full of chatter about it.

They had a lot of the cliche characters and they kind of follow the horror film cliche. Nice guy with bad past and nice girl with messed up past will live because goth chick, comedy guy and secondary characters like a boss, a mysterious friend are all expendible.

Final Destination 3 did the same thing.

I enjoyed the video game stuff but kids investigating murders is how all of these films go (FD3) this is because the horror parts are not actually that time consuming and they needed to fill time.

The only problem with that is when you investigate shit, you die. Have they not figured that out? Don't investigate a noise, don't go into the darkness, don't have sex when your friends just died and bring extra gas.

Leave it to teens to make us all look dumb.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed this movie because it is fun and entertaining. No, it isn't the best but it does what movies are supposed to do at a basic level.

Quoted Text Oh, and by the way, George: If you select the correct combination of clothes, shirt, and weapon, you could unlock a new DVD menu.

What is that combination? haha

That combination has nothing to do with the movie...I tried that.

That's weird. I unlocked all three of them. One displays mostly Sophia Bush's parts, another Frankie Muniz, and another the guy that plays Hutch. There are four DVD menus in total. I forgot what the combinations were but if it comes back to me I'll post them here.

I'll admit that I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on this part. I got it from Netflix, so I'm not overly desperate to find out the combinations. It's long since sent back.

I finally got a chance to see this after a long queue wait on Netflix.  I'm actually a little glad that I recieved the Unrated version as compared to the PG-13 version because I can only imagine at how tame this film would have been with that rating.

Anyway Stay Alive had a very promising premise.  Being a gamer, I couldn't think of a better idea.  A video game that kills you if you die in the game.  How awesome is that?  So I watched this film with moderate expectations, mostly due to the fact that everyone I have asked about it said it sucked donkey nutz.

The first half of this film was great.  I was instantly hooked.  The death scenes, the video game sequences, the characters, I loved all of it.  It's true.  I thought this would be one of those films that would be a "diamond in the rough" and I would like it even though everyone else hated it.  So I'm enjoying this movie and the characters and then the most insane thing happened.  All of the kill scenes were awesome up until a part where one of the gamers is run over by a horse and carriage....Yes, A HORSE AND CARRIAGE.  What the hell?  Are you serious?  Of all the ways to kill someone they pick a horse and carriage?  And how did everyone know he was run over by a horse and carriage?  NO one saw a horse in carriage in the game up to that point except for the guy that got ran over.  I mean hey you got a dead guy on the road, yep, a horse and carriage ran him over.  Just look at the skidmarks on his body.  Give me a freakin break.  And mind you that wasn't the only time it was used.  The writer must have felt that this was the "best" kill form and decided to milk it.  Amazing.

The rest of the film just goes way down from there.  I mean some stupid story involving some chick that gets off torturing little girls and running over people with horse and carriage.  The writer also tried to incorporate some type of police investigation to hinder the gamers' progress but I guess after a while he decided that the police were kind of pointless and literally erased them from the plot.  Seriously, the cops just diappear.  If all these people are ending up dead, I think these gamers wouldn't be able to run scott free after all of this.

The actual ghost of the "Blood Countess" was a joke.  It looked like a cross between the clown fro "IT" and Morticia from the Addams Family.  Plus it was completely fabricated with a laughable mask.  With all of those SFX on those zombie children, they could have made a better antagonist.  And don't get me started on the final sequences.  Way too easy.

I did like some of the characters however.  Frankie Muniz and the guy that played Phinneas were pretty funny.  The girls weren't that attractive, but weren't that bad to look at.  The main guy character was completely annoying and I actually wanted him to die out of all of them.  The comedic elements implenented were funny at parts and rose a laugh or two from me.  The first two kills were awesome and every single video game sequence was top notch.  I actually woudl have prefered if the gamers were actually morphed into the game.  That could have been pretty cool.  Expensive, but cool nonetheless.

** out of ****

Truly a shame though, because I really think this film could have been awesome.  Hopefully in the next couple of years another writer will come along and write a video game movie that will actually make sense ALL THE WAY through the film.  It always seems to happen to these video game films.  I don't know if anyone remembers the 80's film Brainscan, but that also was really good until the halfway mark.  What's up with that?