text: In The Ring, it was a videotape; a website was the problem in Feardotcom; the danger in Pulse came from computers; and Phone and One Missed Call featuredyou guessed itdeadly phones. In Stay Alive, the piece of technology that causes all manner of problems is an online game: those who play it wind up dead soon afterwards. How clever!<br /><br />Directed by William Brent Bell (who?), and featuring an unimpressive cast of twenty-somethings that you might have seen before, but probably can't remember where or what the hell their names are, this is an extremely derivative piece of film-making aimed squarely at the PG-13 horror set; seasoned scary film watchers will no doubt find Stay Alive extremely tedious, highly predictable and not in the least bit frightening.<br /><br />The poorly developed plot follows a group of gamers with extremely daft names (October, Loomis, Phineus, Hutch, and Swink!?!) who attempt to unravel the mystery behind the deadly game before they too become victims. Eventually, they discover that it is the evil spirit of the legendary Countess Elizabeth Bathory who is killing anyone who dares to play, and that their only hope of survival is to continue with the game to the end.<br /><br />With a story as dumb as this, viewers should expect a film with loose ends aplenty, not one iota of logic (who made the game, how, and why is never explained), very little in the way of scares or gore, and a dumb closing scene to leave the door open forGod forbida sequel.