Stay Alive was directed by William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside, Orphan: First Kill), written by Bell and Matthew Peterman (Wer, Drone), and starring Jon Foster (18 & Over, Rampart), Samaire Armstrong (Terror on the Prairie , The OC), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, Night of the Animated Dead), Sophia Bush (Good Sam, One Tree Hill), Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Middle, Pizza Man), Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Brown Sugar), Rio Hackford (Swingers, Deal) and Adam Goldberg (The Equalizer TV series, Miss Nobody). It follows a group of young adults as they search a video game for clues as to why several of their friends were murdered in mysterious ways.
The plot: Many have tried to adapt a horror video game to the big screen; many have failed the task, but few try to reverse engineer the gameplay experience and extend it to the length of the features. It’s no wonder, since video game stories are best told in their original format, allowing as long or as little time as it takes to tell a fleshed-out story, while movies, like Stay Alive, can’t.
His friend has just played a game called ‘Stay Alive’ and is invited to come over and do the same, but what Hutch (Foster) has not been told is that his friend was killed in the game. Of course, he just keeps going and goes to work for Miller (Goldberg) until he learns that his friend has been murdered. At the funeral he meets Abigail (Armstrong), a friend of his friend, who will of course be involved in the fight later. With friends Phineus (Simpson), October (Bush) and Swink (Muniz), along with Abigail and Miller, Hutch decides to try the game his friend died playing while playing.
There’s not much lineup here, with the movie plunging into gameplay in the first 13 minutes, forgoing interested parties, and criminal analysis only later in a poor attempt at dramatic irony. Bell and Peterman have one interesting plot concession: that the characters must come up with an in-game (and real-life) mystery if they want to survive. Before long, Miller dies in-game at the hands of Elizabeth Bathory, and not long after, he dies himself. Detectives Thibodeaux (Pierce) and King (Hackford) discover the pattern in another generic pick and try to unravel the mystery, while the number of young adults begins to dwindle as the police are given time to look.
Generic scenes of investigating history within the fiction, the police assuming Hutch was responsible, and so on all make up the Stay Alive plot. It’s a pastiche of almost every narrative trope the 2000s had to offer, sticking to the treasured life with video games as a novelty.
The characters: Like the decade that popularized slashers, the 2000s didn’t have many horror movies that fueled personalities or motivations. Bell’s position confirms the rule rather than becoming the exception, and does little to humanize the dead men who walk.
Hutch is an ordinary boy; a worker who just comes around and occasionally sits down to play video games. He worked for Miller as a clerk. Exactly what he submitted for Miller or what the company even does remains unanswered, as do the rest of the leadership properties, except for his justified fear of fire. Miller had more personality in less time, with a friendly sneer in his speech, leniency towards his employees, and a taste for gaming that shaped his brief appearance. Despite some talent in the cast such as Bush, Simpson and Muniz, Goldberg, a strong actor, is the only one who puts in a decent performance.
It’s good to have visual identifiers for different characters, but Stay Alive only has those to work with as the other assorted gamers are only characterized by their looks. Abigail is the new addition to the group of friends, which simply means exhibition dumps, Phineus is the socially absent-minded type-b personality, October is the biting goth and Swink is a nerd. Their interactions are generic and a little hard to believe because, without further development, their traits don’t seem like a good mix.
During this period in cinema, writers and directors chose to make audiences hate characters in order to make killings feel satisfying; a choice as opposed to the (generally) more conversational leads in the 80s. Neither is here, as the familiarity of Stay Alive only causes apathy.
The horror: Released at the height of the first survival horror video game boom didn’t do much for Stay Alive, as it rarely capitalizes on the suspense of its inspirations, but that’s not to say it doesn’t come with a gruesome death or disturbing backdrop every now and then. .
Loomis’s death (of course his name was Loomis) in the film’s opening doesn’t raise the bar for what’s to come, even by using the old trope of dying in a game that equates to dying in reality. His character wanders the hallways having visions of children before being pounced on by Bathory and hung from a chandelier; it’s not that scary because the next scene isn’t particularly well filmed and relies way too much on one standard sound effect as a weapon of horror, but at least the kills that follow are well executed.
Bell follows the rulebook of the era for now, with characters seeing themselves closing doors and being lazily startled by demonic-looking children that only we get to see. Aside from basic tactics like these, the script doesn’t give a shit until it starts to change the reality of the characters, like when Phineus crashes his car after seeing something that wasn’t there, telling himself none of it is real as the world turns around. us he begins to fog around him. It seems like a rule-breaking scene, but it instead introduces a necessary new element, even if it backfires on a confession.
Changing perceptions of reality as a byproduct of playing the game fades out the window just as it was introduced, as Stay Alive soon reveals that Bathory’s mind is real and can be dispelled, of course, through a specific sequence of actions. With that revelation, the film returns to a steady course and tries never to deviate, content with the same old fears and atmosphere.
The technique: Bell has never been a strong director, just like Disney, yes that Disney has never been interested in horror. With a connection to the media giant, money had to be spent and a movie had to be made reasonable.
Smoke machines, ambient terror, and outrageous murders are all part of the genre mix, but Stay Alive has none of them for much of its runtime. Probably at the behest of the distributor, the victims’ deaths are clearly scaled-down versions of the original vision, despite the effort shown during their quick inclusions. Atmosphere isn’t taken into account either, with the film’s generic lighting techniques and sound design sapping whatever bit of fear it might come up with.
Crucially, the titular video game looks like a survival horror game set in the early to mid-2000s, with a foggy setting, supernatural overtones, and scripted fears. It’s not Silent Hill (the game, not the movie) but it doesn’t look too cheap like the games in almost every other movie that doesn’t license it. The same can be said about the reality of the film during its time spent in the real world; it’s a great movie, plenty of pace, and runs on a few good ideas.
Stay Alive came out at the right time, but wasn’t made in the right hands. It recycles genre attributes without much support beyond the novelty of the film industry’s tenuous grip on horror games. Fears are rare, but it is not an abject failure. Just watch a YouTube let’s play series.
Stay Alive is currently available on DVD and digital platforms. Bell has also indicated that there has been talk recently about a sequel.
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