Stay Alive

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Stay Alive

Stay Alive film poster
Directed by William Brent Bell
Produced by McG
Written by William Brent Bell
Matthew Peterman
Starring Jon Foster
Samaire Armstrong
Frankie Muniz
Sophia Bush
Milo Ventimiglia
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures (USA)
Hollywood Pictures (USA)
Universal Studios (UK, Netherlands, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil)
Release date(s) 24 March 2006 (USA),
(Canada)
Running time 85 mins (Rated) 100 mins (Unrated Director's Cut)
Language English
Budget $9,000,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile


For other uses, see Stay Alive (disambiguation).

Stay Alive is a 2006 horror film directed and written by William Brent Bell. This film was produced by McG. It is co-produced by Hollywood Pictures and released on March 24, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After the mysterious brutal death of an old friend, a group of teenagers find themselves in possession of Stay Alive, a next generation survival horror videogame based on the spine-chilling true story of a 17th century noblewoman known as "The Blood Countess." The gamers don't know anything about the game other than they're not supposed to have it... and they're dying to play it. Not able to resist temptation, the group begins to play the grisly game and soon a chilling connection is made – after losing the game by dying, they are being murdered one-by-one in the real world, by the same method as the character they played in the game. As the line between the game world and the real world disappears, the group must find a way to defeat the vicious and merciless Blood Countess, all the while trying to stay alive.

A predominant theme throughout the movie is the idea of the rose. In the game, the rose is used to destroy any enemy that comes at the player, and in reality, it's a rose that stops an oncoming Elizabeth Bathory in a carriage that nearly runs over one of the characters.

There are several historical inaccuracies throughout the movie, namely, that the location of the "house" of the Blood Countess being in America, while in reality she lived and grew up in Hungary. However, in the universe of the movie this is explained by an author who wrote a book about her as the result of the Blood Countess having fled her homeland to the United States to escape persecution and to continue her bloody habits.

===Deaths=== *ATTENTION: This section has been vandalized*

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
  • Rex (Billy Slaughter) & Sarah (Nicole Opperman) - Killed (off-screen) by The Blood Countess while having sex in a bedroom, after playing the game (off-screen). Their bodies are found by Loomis - Rex being slashed to death and Sarah's blood being drained completely from her body. (in the PG-13 version, all we see are quick flashes of their bodies, but in the unrated DVD, we see a longer, extended view of the bloody bedroom. It is also seen again when Hutch and Abigail go to the house to look for clues)
  • Loomis Crowley (Milo Ventimiglia) - Thrown from a stair banister by the Blood Countess after she snaps a shackle onto his neck, resulting in his hanging and breaking his neck.
  • Miller (Adam Goldberg) - Cornered by the Blood Countess and killed when she drives a pair of shears into his neck (off-screen) in the rated version.
  • Phineus Bantum (Jimmi Simpson) - Hit by a carriage in the middle of an isolated road. We don't see Phineus die in gameplay, but it is presumed he was killed in the game and then killed for real. In the unrated DVD, we actually see Phineus get hit by the carriage, and see his very bloody body lying in the road with a large puddle of blood around his head and slashes on his shirt/chest. October is also bloodied when she cries and hugs him on the road.
  • Detective Charles Kay (David Jones) - Face ripped open (off-screen in the rated version; in the unrated, we actually see his jaws ripped apart, and a wave of blood hit the windshield. We also see his entire head explode in a bloody mess in the video game before his actual death) after playing the game briefly.
  • October Bantum (Sophia Bush) - While smoking outside of a house under construction, the game plays itself. She is briefly chased by The Countess, hung upside down and taunted and then has her throat slashed with shears. In the PG-13, we merely see her get slashed and fall to the ground, where Hutch, Abigail and Swink later find her, but in the unrated version, we see a few extended cuts of blood streaming down her face and October gagging, and then Hutch hugging her very, very bloody body.
  • The Countess (Maria Kalina) - Shot and killed repeatedly by Hutch and then gets thrown by Abigail and Swink. She is shred into pieces. In the rated PG-13 and unrated versions, she comes alive in the end of the movie.
  • Jonathan Malkus (James Haven) (Unrated D.C. Only) - Killed (off-screen) by The Blood Countess. His body is shown in his house in the finale of the movie when Abigail discovers him with her lighter while being attacked herself.

[edit] Survivors

It is worth noting that in the rated version, Swink Sylvania's survival seems to lack explanation. Shortly before the end of the movie, Swink is slain by The Blood Countess in the woods near her plantation.(not true. At the end of the movie, in the game, it goes off the screen and does not show his death, while in real life he falls in to a bush full of wild roses that she can not reach him through) At the end, after Hutch MacNeil slays The Blood Countess, Swink reappears with Abigail to usher Hutch out of the tower and leave the plantation.

As can be seen, many of the deaths are extended in the unrated edition. The deaths are also bloodier and more violent.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Taglines

  • You Die In The Game - You Die For Real
  • Play It To Death...
  • Game Over
  • wanna play?
  • There's only one thing you'll lose in this game,YOUR LIFE!
  • Game over in the game, game over in life.

[edit] Box Office

As of April 9, 2006, the film grossed a total of 20.4 million dollars in the United States Box Office. It was widely panned by critics and horror fans alike. However, it might do a lot better on DVD: Unlike other unrated versions, which merely consist of few longer shots of gory scenes which were cut to avoid an NC-17 rating, this film goes from PG-13 to Unrated, thereby extending its running time by almost 15 minutes and making for an entirely different, darker movie than was experienced in theaters.

[edit] DVD Release

The DVD was released in the USA on Tuesday, September 19th 2006. It was made available in an unrated edition (100 minutes) and a PG-13 edition (85 minutes). The 15 minutes of new unrated footage includes an entirely new character and subplot. The unrated edition also features more violence, blood and gore, sex/nudity, profanity, and drug use.

International releases are pending.

[edit] Trivia

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.
  • The first film from Hollywood Pictures in five years.
  • The movie's Blood Countess is based on the Hungarian countess Erzebet (Elizabeth) Báthory, who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
  • If one looks or listens closely in the movie, one can see or hear some references to real life games, such as Fatal Frame, Siren, or Silent Hill 4. In the game store, one can see the slim version of the Playstation 2 and signs advertising Unreal Championship 2 and Area 51.
  • Scattered throughout the movie are empty bottles of Red Bull, a caffeine drink popular among gamers.
  • The preview for this movie repeats itself (it starts with screaming and Hutch says, "If you die in the game, you die for real." Then it says, "Stay Alive", and then it repeats.)
  • In the opening scene, Rex is wearing a Piggsy mask, a character from the videogame Manhunt.
  • When all the characters show up for a LAN, a giant mural of the anime Steamboy is visible behind them.
  • The film may also be based on legends or myths of plantations in the southern United States. [citation needed]
  • The car that Phineus is driving while singing "Sweet Dreams" is a 1988 Pontiac Fiero. Despite its contemporary modern appearance, its body is completely stock.
  • In the movie, some of the characters are seen using Alienware laptops.
  • One of the characters in the game is wearing a Fuel Belt, a belt for runners which can hold small bottles of water.
  • The code given by Swink to get characters in the game naked is actually the Konami Code.
  • Although stated in the movie when October was murdered, the first person to die due to the game "playing itself" is actually Rex and Sarah. When Loomis walks in on them having sex, he states that he just saw their characters in the game, yet Rex tells Loomis that they turned it off hour beforehand.
  • The news announcement is made that "Detective Charles Kay" was murdered in his car. However after seeing this Swink says that Detective "King" had been murdered. This could be attributed to the heat of the moment, as just then the police arrive at Hutch's house.
  • Many gamers detest the film as they see it as an insult to gamers due to the many stereotypes that are featured in the film and the fact the film seems to suggest that all video games are violent which is far from true.
  • October gives the title of the book she read just before the police arrive as "The Malleus Demonium", when in fact it is the "Malleus Maleficarum."
  • The film seems to serve as a reference to Final Destination.

[edit] External links

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