No movie that pits Frankie Muniz against Elizabeth Bathory can be ignored, but in the case of Stay Alive, well make an exception. How does a 16th century Hungarian countess find herself in the modern day, you ask? Brace yourself. We want a horror movie about gaming, someone mustve said, but its got to be generic enough to appeal to everyone. How about Tron goes to Elm Street? The villain is Elizabeth Bathory, but shes got Freddys powers, and shes stuck in a videogame. So theres this game called (you guessed it) Stay Alive, and if your digital avatar dies, you die in real life, so the name of the game is to, like, stay alive as you hunt Countess Dracula through her New Orleans mansion. This stunning originality extends to the storys teenaged hero/leader, whos been having these flashbacks to his parents death in a house fire, and if you just thought, I bet he has to come to terms with that at some point, youre way ahead of the filmmakers.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
