Stay Alive
User Score
4.5 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 76 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 76
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 76
  3. Negative: 38 out of 76

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  1. JoeD.
    Apr 9, 2006
    3
    Laughably bad. The acting was some of the worst I've seen in a long time. I really want to know did the research for this movie because even some of the facts are blatantly wrong. For example, the movie uses the story of Elizabeth Bathory, who was a real Hungarian countess that lived from 1560-1614, as its backdrop but the movie is set in New Orleans? It just doesn't make any sense. New Orleans wasn't even around back in that time period, the United States had yet to become a country even.… Expand
  2. JamesR.
    Apr 8, 2007
    0
    Inept on almost every level. Only the weakest of minds will find this tripe entertaining.
  3. DanielT.
    Oct 9, 2006
    0
    This is by far the worst film I've seen this year. It's about as stereo-typical as a horror film can get. Cheap animation, some really bad special effects, and you'll never be surprised due to the fact it's so by-the-book. Other ways this movie fails is that quite a few scenes are purely for in-movie-advertisement; other times you can see the actors/movie maker equipment in the scene. It also fails at making the video game actually appear presentable with any connections to real life video games. Instead it's just one big cheap animation-athon. It also makes some very stereo-typical references to video game "nude codes… Expand
  4. DaveC.
    Oct 9, 2006
    0
    This movie was so bad you'd think it was a Uwe Boll movie, but it didn't have "needlessly added car chases". Even so it is just as laughably bad as one.
  5. jjfad
    Mar 20, 2006
    0
    Um...so i was unfortunate enough to sit through a screening of this garbage...and i really wish i had been in a position to leave...but was an unwilling guest of someone involved in this (so-called) production. i swear there must be some form of nepotism involved here, because i am pretty sure the "movie" my friends and i made in 8th grade and edited between a pair of VHS decks far outclassed stay alive in writing, production value, acting and certainly in direction and effects. it is no wonder these guys have never been involved in a movie before (pa on payback does not really count) and i pray they are never involved again... so back to the nepotism thing...that can be the only possible way that the writers of this horrible excuse for entertainment could have gotten this project off the ground... in summary...please stay home and just watch a Lifetime Movie of the Week...i guarantee it will be less expensive and certainly scarier. or i can send you a copy of "My Housekeeper is a Ninja" its a cult classic from 8th grade.… Expand
  6. [Anonymous]
    Mar 27, 2006
    3
    People who gave this movie 8 and up must be getting paid. seriously. it sucks. read w00f w00f's review, he nails it right on the head.
  7. MartinL
    Apr 7, 2006
    3
    Slightly interesting...very bad though.
  8. w00fw00f
    Mar 24, 2006
    1
    [***SPOILERS***] If you've seen the television ads for this dreadful flick, you've already seen the best it has to offer. Don't waste your money on the price of a ticket. "Stay Alive" is poor film making at its worst. We're talking about one scene in which a boom mike is visible, and another in which a profile shot of an actress reveals a large orange object (an earplug, I think) in her left ear. It's THAT kind of bad. It's the kind of bad film making in which characters have knowledge of conversations that took place while they were elsewhere. Phineas, for instance, has been out driving while the rest of the cast has been talking about how people are dying when they die in "the game," yet when he receives a call on his cell phone responds that he'll be alright because "That's right! I haven't died in the game!" It's the kind of bad film making that puts a notorious Elizabethan-era mass murderer (Elizabeth Bathory) in New Orleans and changes the name of a very famous book about witch hunting, "Maleus Malificarum," to "Maleus Demonium" but forgets to change the title of the book that a character is holding in her hands WHILE she is telling someone else about the contents of the book. It's the kind of bad film making wherein the performances are so paper-thin that, clearly, if this were bad in any sort of memorable way (instead of merely being sloppy and formulaic), Frankie Muniz would surely be up for a Razzie for his stilted, twitchy, downright annoying performance. It's the kind of bad that has the main weapons of the oh-so-horrible ghostly antagonist turn out to be a pair of scissors and a horse-drawn carriage that can be vaporized by throwing a rose at it. It's the kind of bad that has a main character suddenly blurt out her entire life story while riding in a van with no apparent provocation, and her story has absolutely no connection to anything in the rest of the movie at all. None. WHY? Clearly, the writers were unable to string together anything coherent here. To make matters worse, the film takes itself seriously yet fails utterly to deliver on the gore. There isn't a single good scare in the film; it's all hand-on-the-shoulder, bump-in-the-night stuff here. In fact, we never really see a death scene other than one or two knife strokes. Most of the time, the lights go out, there's a scream, and suddenly another one's bit the dust. Either that or a quick cutaway. Truly gutless stuff here. No doubt the producers realized that nobody over the age of 14 would buy into this pablum and decided to go after a PG-13 rating. I've heard stories told around campfires that were ten times as scary as this mess. Even the special effects look cartoonish, and real video games have better graphics than most of what we see in "Stay Alive." "Stay Alive" is bad in every conceivable way. The patently predictable ending of this lurching wreck of a movie leaves open the possibility of a sequel, of course. I doubt there will be one, though, because I can't imagine anyone wanting to sit through another two hours of something as bad as this. We're talking "Darkness Falls" and "Fear Dot Com" bad stuff here. Save your money. The most frightening thing about "Stay Alive" is the price of admission.… Expand
  9. SeanR.
    Feb 24, 2007
    0
    My girlfriend rented this discount movie at blockbuster, and omfg what a total pile of inept trash. Anyone who finds this movie even remotely good must be mentally retarded.
  10. Becky
    Jun 26, 2007
    1
    OK, if you've seen the previews last year that's all there is to this movie. Once one guy is dead you know what's going to happen to every guy. Even i knew the solution to this problem before they did. Everything was easy and predictable. The Countess looked fake and actually kind of comical. There was little suspense and we only get brief glimpses of blood and gore. Instead of scaring me to death this movie made me laugh.… Expand
  11. WillJ.
    Dec 26, 2006
    0
    This movie was so bad, it almost reminded me of the movie Hackers. I walked out of it half way through, because of the sheer overwhelming scent of crap eminating from the celluloid. The only character that was any good got killed off within the first twenty minutes. Not even a good shocker scene could be pulled off, and the strange unreality of the appearance of the hardcore gamers, i.e., why such attractive people, real gamers have pot bellies and enormous bifocals. Goth kids will be raving about this. If you see them, please hit them in the mouth with a brick covered in shards of glass, stuck together with anthrax. Actors please go back to your respective TV shows, we do not want you. Big thanks to William Brent Bell, simultaneously ruining a very good first name and taking a nice heaving dump all over movies.… Expand
  12. CharlieN.
    May 17, 2006
    4
    Meh...boring and unscary...an R rated version would have been better.
  13. Judddy
    Apr 22, 2011
    1
    An unforgettably and unforgivably terrible film. It is completely laughable, and is a pathetic horror turn with a dimwitted plot, terrible acting and irritating direction.
  14. moviegrabbag
    Jun 12, 2011
    3
    Stay Alive did a better job then I thought it would but it left a whole lot of questions. One being why in the heck did an evil ghost woman come back in the form of a video game to kill people? This is never even addressed apparently she just looked down from her tower and said "well all the young kids are into the videa games I guess thats as good a way to kill them as any" The other thing is at the end how the game imitates real life. I just can't believe malcom in the middle drops a crow bar in the game and it appears in life. Another problem with the movie is who the hell named these people? With great names like Hutch, October, Swink and Phineus. This group of friends had the worst parents ever. Another issue was the romance between Abby and Hutch. It seemed very forced and really stupid. The last problem was after the characters figured out that if they die in the game they die in real life they make the logical choice to just stop playing the game. So the movie comes out and just says "no, you stop I will just play for you. Yeah that will work" Through out the movie it seemed very forced and just hard to believe. Not the worst horror movie around but there are far better options out there to watch instead.… Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
24 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 17 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 17
  3. Negative: 11 out of 17
  1. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    Horror buffs looking for a novel twist on genre formulas should look elsewhere, but this body-count potboiler about a sinister video game and the poor dopes who make the mistake of playing it is the movie equivalent of junk food: It's not good, but it's predictable and even satisfying, in a low-expectations way.
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  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    50
    A passable horror-thriller for the young crowd, assuming a movie can lure them away from PlayStations.
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  3. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    38
    There's a fascinating and terrifying story to be told about Elizabeth Bathory, the dramatically depraved 17th century sadist known as the Blood Countess.....This ain't it.
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