One of those movies that thinks loud sounds and shaky cameras account for scares, and reminding of us of truly scary gaming experiences only amplifies its weaknesses.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

There's a gothic backstory to all this, which makes no sense but looks pretty cool.

| Mar 7, 2007

Never has a title been more horribly at odds with the way you're actually going to feel while watching the movie.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 29, 2006

A cool idea rapidly falls apart. A completely missed opportunity.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 28, 2006

Stuttering like a busted console, the film's lack of invention is only rivalled by a paucity of gore which will seem positively comical to gamers long since inured to cyberspace slaughter.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 4, 2006

... while its narrative style -- elliptical, fragmented, even eccentric at times -- is ambitious and imaginative, it sometimes makes for a loss of clarity and momentum.

| Jun 24, 2006

Implausibly tedious, Stay Alive has none of the vicarious thrills of, say, Konami's Silent Hill 2. It's barely even Pong unplugged.

| Original Score: 0/5 | Apr 8, 2006

Teen fodder like this isn't known for sophistication or storytelling depth, but the filmmakers seem to take the film's video-game theme as permission to eschew even the horror genre's exceedingly lenient minimums for characterization.

| Original Score: D- | Mar 30, 2006

Videogames are no longer brainless, so why are videogame movies so slow to evolve?

| Original Score: D- | Mar 29, 2006

An anemic attempt to update the horror genre's imperiled-teens-meet-bloodletting-uber-fiend substratum.

Full Review | Mar 28, 2006

It's unlikely that Stay Alive could ever have been a good movie in the traditional sense, but it might have been better if Bell and co-writer Matthew Peterman had done more to exploit their gaming premise.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 28, 2006

The star of Stay Alive is a cutting-edge video game, but the film still has hackneyed horror at its heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 28, 2006

A notion of an outline of a rough draft of a killer video-game flick.

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/4 | Mar 28, 2006

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.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 28, 2006

Here's a movie that tries to be a video game but is less entertaining than a vending machine.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 28, 2006

This is a cool/potentially creepy idea only if you're in high school and goofing around with your friends at the movie theater. For everyone else, this isn't just a preposterous premise for a horror movie, it's a source of unintentional hilarity.

| Mar 28, 2006

The hybrid of cyber antics and bayou creepiness doesn't quite jell, but it all ends bloodily, and in an efficient 85 minutes, too. I'm not complaining.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 28, 2006

Dead on arrival.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 24, 2006

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 24, 2006

It's amazing how little Stay Alive actually knows about the videogame culture in which its terror-lite tale is set.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 24, 2006