Stay Alive 2006

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: There's a gothic backstory to all this, which makes no sense but looks pretty cool. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: 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. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: 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. Read more

James Parker, Boston Globe: 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. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: Videogames are no longer brainless, so why are videogame movies so slow to evolve? Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Dead on arrival. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, L.A. Weekly: Maybe video games really do rot the mind. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: 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. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: 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. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Perhaps the worst horror film to not have Uwe Boll's name in the credits. Read more

Neva Chonin, San Francisco Chronicle: 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. Read more

Jason Anderson, Globe and Mail: Here's a movie that tries to be a video game but is less entertaining than a vending machine. Read more

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

John Anderson, Variety: An anemic attempt to update the horror genre's imperiled-teens-meet-bloodletting-uber-fiend substratum. Read more