SYNOPSIS:
After the mysterious brutal death of an old friend, a group
of teenagers find themselves in possession of Stay Alive, a
next generation horror survival 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 are not suppposed to have it...and they are
dying to play it. Not able to resist temptation, the group begin
to play the grisly game and soon a chilling connection is made
- they are each being murdered one-by-one in 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.
MOVIE REVIEW :
This
reviewer shall continue to whine about how filmmakers are
wasting precious resources by churning out horror flicks like
this – right up to the day when these movies cease to
exist. Yes, just as much as we are sure that you are chuckling
at this silly notion, we also know that is almost impossible.
We also
realize that pictures of such genre bring in the money, because
of the possible cheap scares it brings. Strange fetish the
movie crowd nowadays has, we’d say.
This slash-happy
movie tells the ever-predictable story of a group of teens
who lay their hands on a video game which bears an uncreative
title “Stay Alive”. The objective of the game?
To stay alive, of course. If not, players would die a horrible
death once they die in the game, as the players would gradually
find out.
While
we have often asked ourselves what we would do if faced with
the same dire situation, we have always thought that we would
be smarter than those stereotypical characters – anytime.
But what
is new? Watching a movie like this, you’d know how they
would die one by one, and thankfully, this William Brent Bell-directed
flick only puts us through 86 minutes of such mind-numbing
exercise.
To be
fair, the idea behind the movie is a creative one. But 10
minutes into the noisy movie, it becomes a typical fright
fest with the obligatory bag of cheap scares which include
mindless screaming and running. Probably because of its family-friendly
rating, the scares do not go beyond a brief wide shot of a
bloody corpse. Gamers would enjoy the engagingly-executed
video game sequences.
Wait,
they would go play an actual game if they wanted thrills in
that form.
The bland
acting from the TV actors does not help to make the viewing
experience any more interesting. With Frankie “Malcom
in the Middle” Muniz as its most recognizable face,
we’d be damned if we commended any of the cast member’s
ability to emote.
While
we morbidly look forward to bashing a movie like this, we
also understand that there must actually be an equally morbid
crowd out there who enjoys movies of this genre. That is possibly
the only reason why studios are churning them out one by one.
SPECIAL
FEATURES :
This Code 3 disc contains zero special features.
It’d have been nice to include a trial version of the
actual “Stay Alive” video game just for kicks.
But then again, this might have been a more superior feature
than the movie itself.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
If
you were really bored, you’d switch language options
between English, Japanese and Thai. The polished look of this
Hollywood production (another redeeming factor of this movie!)
is maintained with the disc’s nice visual transfer.
MOVIE
RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review
by John Li
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