Stay Alive

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Stay Alive
Image:Stay Alive poster.jpg
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
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2007)
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

In the opening sequence, a character in a video game is seen entering a mansion. Undead attack him, and out of the gloom lunges a woman wearing a blood red dress. She knocks him off the 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 room mates dead, the woman in the game appears and pushes him off the banister, and Loomis is killed by the chain before he has a chance to land.

The following day, Hutch, whilst at work, is notified of Loomis' death. Hutch attends Loomis' funeral, at which he meets a friend of Sarah's, Abigail. Hutch is given all of Loomis' games and papers by Loomis’ younger sister, including the bootleg of the game Stay Alive. After the funeral, Hutch drops in on October and Phineas Bantum in a coffee shop. Phin shows interest in a lighter and Stay Alive, mainly because he had never heard of it. The sight of the lighter and the game disturbs Hutch, as it had been the game Loomis was playing hours before he died. Hutch will later reveal that when he was a young boy, his father set fire to their house to kill his supposed cheating wife. Fire fighters were able to save Hutch but found his mother still lying on the bed, dead. After returning to his apartment, Hutch is surprised by the sudden appearance of his friends Swink, October, Phin and Abigail, who had come over to all play Stay Alive. Miller, Hutch’s employer, joins the group by playing on a computer (online) at his office. The six players recite a prayer (without which the game would not be accessible) and start the main gameplay. The game remarks that roses have a negative effect on enemies, allowing them to aviod the creatures they cannot defeat for a short amount of time. After a few hours of gaming Miller, attacked by a mob of undead children, finds his way into what appears to be a torture room. Freaked out, he takes a break to smoke a cigarette while his controller begins to vibrate. Suddenly, the woman who killed Loomis kills Miller's character by stabbing him in the throat with shears. Miller himself dies the same way a few minutes later.

Hutch realizes Loomis and Miller died the same way they died in Stay Alive and goes to a library to do research. After finding the needed information, Hutch meets up with the other players to reveal his discoveries. Phin, the only one not shaken by Hutch's discovery, plays Stay Alive "for Miller." His friends leave him alone, angry at Phin for not taking the deaths seriously enough. Soon after, he pauses the game, noticing that the Countess shattered all mirrors but one he flipped over. Noticing that Phin has not yet arrived, Hutch begins to reveal his findings when October reveals that she found some information about the Countess. Her name was Elizabeth Báthory and she use to look after small girls, teaching them how to behave (It was like a boarding school). As the girls were at her house, she would torture them for her own entertainment. When people found out about what Elizabeth had been doing, they locked her up in a tower, alive. October then reveals that the last thing Elizabeth said was that she would be back. This causes October to come up with the idea that maybe Elizabeth is back to get her revenge through the video game. Phin is shown later driving down a stretch of road, on his way to meet up with his friends, when a demon child almost causes him to crash. After getting out of his car to investigate, a horse drawn carriage tramples and kills him. When Phin freaks out on the phone with his friends, October, Hutch, and Abigail drive out to in order to find him, but instead find his lifeless body. The 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 the computer before the officer’s character dies. October, the most affected because of her brother's death, researches ways of killing a witch, discovering that driving three nails into the neck, heart and forehead and burning its blood could stop her. They also discover that the Countess shatters almost all mirrors because she couldn't stand to see herself get old.

As a news report states that the officer who was playing at the scene was murdered, cops arrive at Hutch's apartment. October and a reluctant Swink run out of the apartment before the cops make it in. The group decides to go to Loomis' house to hide out and that no one can play Stay Alive for their own good, but when the computer is left alone, the game starts on its own, soon killing October’s character. Hutch and Abigail come up with the idea of going to the programmer's house. October is trapped and killed by the Countess as she enters a house that is under construction near Loomis' house. She had stepped out for a smoke and was away from the group. Hutch, Swink and Abigail, the only remaining characters drive to the programmer's house, only to discover it is the mansion from the game. Swink decides that one person must play, while the other two find the Countess' body (as a distraction). He volunteers to play, with Hutch and Abigail splitting up and exploring the mansion on their own. As Abigail searches on her own, she discovers a hidden room that has disturbing pictures and decapitated dolls. The game starts to become merged with the actual world, as we see Swink guiding Hutch through the mansion by unlocking doors and giving him tools. Hutch must save Abigail from the Countess and two demon girls by listening to all of Swink's information. Once Hutch and Abigail are safe, the game starts to play against Swink as he is locked out of Abigail's van. The Countess almost kills Swink when she chases him in her carriage through the pathway to the plantation, until Swink falls into a rose bush. The blood Countess then gets out of the carriage and approaches Swink with a pair of shears. The scene then cuts to the computer screen with Swink’s apparently dead character lying in a wild rose bush, not moving.

After discovering what they thought was Swink's death in the game, Hutch takes three nails from a wall while Abigail cuts some roses and puts them in a bag. She also grabs a pair of shears that were found in the secret room. As they hear the carriage approaching, they run through the cemetery towards the tower. Hutch then realizes that the roses still work even though they are not in the game. While in the tunnels, Hutch & 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. She is then approached by the Countess and chained upside down. When Hutch reaches the top of the tower, he finds the Countess' body, amazingly well-preserved. Driving the nails in, he prepares to leave until the Countess suddenly rises, causing the nails to fall out. Hutch uses his laptop to show the Countess her reflection - the Countess, who cannot shatter this surface, is distracted, and Hutch, taking the opportunity, 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. The Countess' body burns and the three characters successfully leave, alive.

Later, actual copies of Stay Alive are being sold at the video game store and the salesman places it in the console (a PlayStation 2) and we see the game's opening sequence while Elizabeth's prayer is recited.

[edit] Locations

The house appears to be plantation house on Bayou Road in Saint Bernard Parish, Eastern New Orleans, Louisiana. This assumption is made based entirely on the construction of the face of the house, to include the glass in the upstairs windows. [1].

[edit] Cast

  • Wendell Pierce: Detective T.
  • Maria Kalinina: Countess (Elizabeth Báthory)
  • Billy Louviere: Fidget
  • Jim Bishop: Mr. Crowley
  • J. Richey Nash: Young
  • Billy Slaughter: Rex
  • Nicole Oppermann: Sarah
  • Cynthia LeBlanc: Lady in the park (scenes deleted)
  • Elton LeBlanc: Man in the park (scenes deleted)
  • Alice Krige: Author (Unrated)
  • James Haven as Jonathan Malkus (Unrated)

[edit] Box office

As of June 29, 2006, the film grossed a total of 23.08 million dollars in the United States[citation needed]. The watered-down theatrical version was widely panned by critics and horror fans alike[citation needed] but the Unrated Director's Cut was thought of as a far better film. It was considered a box office success due to its production budget of only 9 million dollars. Three days after the movie was released, it already grossed more than its budget with 10.7 million dollars in the United States. The movie has grossed a total of over 25.18 million dollars worldwide and has yet to be released in many markets internationally.[citation needed]

[edit] DVD Release

The DVD was released in the USA on Tuesday, September 19th 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 an entirely new character and subplot. The unrated edition also features more violence, blood and gore, sexuality/nudity, 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.
  • This was the last film that completed its production in New Orleans, Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina hit.
  • There are several historical inaccuracies throughout the movie, perhaps most notable is that it is claimed that the Blood Countess lived in America, while Elizabeth Báthory (on whom she is based) lived and grew up in Hungary. In the film it was mentioned erroneously that Elizabeth Báthory came from Romania. In the universe of the movie, this issue is addressed to some extent through the explanation that the Blood Countess fled to the United States to escape persecution and to continue her bloody habits.
  • The Laptops used were Alienware Laptops with a chrome finish.
  • The first film from Hollywood Pictures in five years.
  • If one looks or listens closely in the movie, one can see or hear some references to real life games, such as Fatal Frame, Siren, Silent Hill, and strangely, Ratchet and Clank. In the game store, one can see the slim version of the Playstation 2 and signs advertising Unreal Championship 2, Killzone and Area 51.There was also a copy of ATV Offroad Fury 2 and one of EyeToy: Groove in the store. There is even a poster of "Jak" from the Jak and Daxter series of video games in Hutch's room, as well as a poster for Killzone in Crowley's room.
  • The book mentioned by October is "The Malleus Demonum" and she says that it's "The Witch's Hammer." This is incorrect. The actual title for the book "The Witch's Hammer" is "The Malleus Maleficarum"
  • In the background of Hutch's apartment, when the original group begins to play the game, two large posters of Katsuhiro Otomo's anime motion picture, Steamboy, can be seen on the wall behind the couch.
  • CliffyB was the movie's videogame consultant. However, several video game references in the film are either incorrect or suspect.
  • In the film Swink tells Phin, that to unclothe the zombie concubines, you input the Konami Code.
  • Swink is looking at a popular computer site Xoxide.com during the part where blood seems to leak out of his keyboard.
  • When Hutch is reading through police reports about the deaths, if you look closely the word occurrence is misspelled as "occurrenece"

[edit] External links

fr:Stay Alive it:Stay Alive he:להישאר בחיים lt:Stay Alive nl:Stay Alive pl:Stay Alive pt:Stay Alive sv:Stay Alive tr:Stay Alive

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Stay_Alive"
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