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
Jimmi Simpson
Adam Goldberg
Milo Ventimiglia
Distributed by 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)
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile
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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
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, co-produced by Hollywood Pictures and released on March 24, 2006 in the US.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

A person in a video game is spotted entering an eerie plantation. He walks past a broken mirror, where an image of a dead girl appears in the mirror, foreshadowing an attack by an Undead. The character flees up the stairs, spies an undead girl in the hallway, and enters a room where two dead bodies, covered in blood, hang from the ceiling. Out of the gloom lunges a woman wearing a blood red dress. She knocks him off the staircase banister, and the character is killed when he is hanged by a chandelier chain.

The player of the game (Stay Alive), Loomis Crowley, asks his friend Hutch Macneil to come over. When Hutch turns him down, Loomis goes to bed, but is later woken by a nightmare. As he returns from getting a glass of milk, he hears a strange vibrating noise, and a shadow approaches him. After finding his roommates dead, the woman in the game appears and pushes him off the banister, and Loomis is killed by a chain wrapped around his neck before he has a chance to land, eerily similar to his character's death in the game.

Hutch is then seen in his office, where he is an intern at a business corporation. Hutch's boss, Miller asks to see him, when really he only wants gaming advice on Silent Hill 4. After discussing the video game, the phone rings, and the call if for Hutch. The phone call informs Hutch that his close friend, Loomis, who Hutch was just talking to the night before, has died.

At the funeral, Hutch is given all of Loomis' games and papers by Loomis’ younger sister, including "Stay Alive". The sight of the game disturbs Hutch, as it had been the game Loomis was playing hours before he died. At the funeral, a blonde girl about Hutch's age approaches him with an old-fashioned camera (the camera is a tribute to Fatal Frame, a horror survival game in which most of the video game portion of the film is based on). She takes a picture of him and identifies herself as Abby, a close friend to Loomis' roomate, Sarah, who was also killed the night Loomis died.

After the funeral, Hutch arrives at a video-game coffee shop owned and run by his two friends, October and Phineus, who are brother and sister. Hutch hands October the bag containing Loomis' posessions, and October thumbs through a photo album and Phin finds an old lighter. The lighter triggers a trauma vision of the past for Hutch. These trauma visions are shown throughout the film. Phin eventually finds Stay Alive, when they decide to play that night.


October, Phin, and another friend Swink arrive at Hutches house. Arriving with them is Abby, who Hutch invited at Loomis' funeral. The game starts with "The Prayer of Elizabeth", in which all the groups have to recite. The game intro

After a few hours of gaming, Miller, who had been attacked by a mob of undead children, finds his way into what appears to be a torture chamber. Suddenly, the woman who killed Loomis kills Miller's character, and Miller dies a few minutes later.

Hutch realizes Loomis and Miller died the same way they died in Stay Alive, and goes to a library research the game. Hutch begins to reveal his findings when October says she found some information about the Countess (later revealed to be Elizabeth Bathory, although her name isn't said by any of the characters in the movie). Phin is later shown driving down a stretch of road, on his way to meet up with his friends, when an apparition almost causes him to crash. After getting out of his car to investigate, a horse-drawn carriage runs him down.

Officers arrive on the scene, and one decides to play Stay Alive, as he is curious about the game. Hutch tries to stop him, but fails to shut down the computer before the officer’s character dies.

While trying to smoke a cigarette, October is trapped and killed by the Countess when she enters a house that is under construction near Loomis' residence.

Hutch, Swink and Abigail drive to the programmer's house, only to discover it is the mansion from the game. As they hear the carriage approaching, they run through the cemetery towards the tower. Hutch abruptly realizes the roses still work, even though they are not in the game. While in the tunnels, Hutch and Abigail look for the entrance to the tower.

Pursued by the Countess, Abigail is locked in the torture room, forcing Hutch to leave her as he tries to reach the tower. When he does, he finds the Countess' body, amazingly well-preserved. Hutch uses his laptop to show the Countess her reflection and Hutch sets fire to the room. The door is locked, and he accepts the fact that he's going to be killed by fire, until Swink and Abigail kick the door open and rescue him.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Release

[edit] Box office

As of June 29, 2006, the film grossed a total of 23.08 million dollars in the United States.[1] It was considered a box office success due to its production budget of only 9 million dollars. In the opening weekend, it already grossed more than its budget with 10.7 million dollars in the United States. The movie has grossed a total of over 27.1 million dollars worldwide. [1]

[edit] Critical reaction

The theatrical version was given negative reviews by critics. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 24 out of 100, based on 17 reviews.[2]

In the Los Angeles Times, John Anderson commented that "'Stay Alive' spends a lot of time inside the video game system, and what will terrify the audience very early on is the realization that there's better acting in the video game than on the big screen."[3]

"[4] Meanwhile, Variety magazine concluded: "Seldom is there anything close to real passion or panic on display here from cast members"[5]

[edit] DVD Release

The DVD was released in the USA on Tuesday, September 19, 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 include a new character and subplot. The unrated edition also features a little more violence, blood and gore, profanity, and drug use.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Stay alive Box office Mojo
  2. ^ Stay alive: Reviews. Metacritic.
  3. ^ Film review:Stay alive. Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ Film review. Entertainment Weekly.
  5. ^ Film review. Variety magazine.

[edit] External links