Stay Alive

Stay Alive is, despite some indications to the contrary, a very good movie.

Don't let the fact that it has "Malcolm" from Malcolm In The Middle in a pretty big role fool you.

Don't be distracted by the fact that pretty much the only other person you know is "that dude that played Chandler's crazy roommate wasn't he called Eddie or something in those Friends episodes where Joey moved out?"

And, yes, it is heavily based around a video game.

Simple concept (which are often the best): a group of friends get a pre-release copy of a new game from a recently deceased friend (which should have given them a clue, right there). As they play the game, they start to die - in exactly the same way as they did in the game. So, they have to figure out how to beat the game.

I don't know whether or not Stay Alive is, or is going to be, an actual game, but, if not, it can only be a matter of time.

The movie itself is fast-paced enough to keep it interesting. The gore-quotient is not too high, especially when you consider that a good portion of it is computer animation.

There are few, if any, real jump-points, and few, if any, real chill-down-the-spine moments, but despite that it's a reasonably good modern horror.

One for either hard-core horror fans who must see everything, or one for those that want to watch horror but can't stand the true slasher flicks.

Doombreed Rating: ***1/2