‘Stay Alive’ Is A “Dumb, Fun Teen Slasher” Worth Revisiting: Here’s How
2006 was a big year. I started sixth grade. I got my first retainer. Everybody was wearing gauchos. The radio was playing Akon and Fall Out Boy. And there was so. Much. Horror. Pick a movie from that year and you’re guaranteed to have a banger on your hands. Silent Hill? Banger. The Host? Banger. The Hills Have Eyes? Banger. Stay Alive? Not a banger. And yet, despite it having a 2.4 rating on Letterboxd, I believe this “dumb, fun teen slasher” is worth revisiting.
“But Ashliene, why would I waste my time with a bad movie?” Listen. I love trash. I also think there’s no such thing as a bad movie, per se. Movies can fail in all kinds of ways and still be wildly entertaining. And Stay Alive is very entertaining.
For those who stuck this movie in their repressed memory (or were born in the 2000s), the film follows a group of young gamers who discover a cursed survival-horror video game inspired by Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who (allegedly) tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries (emphasis on allegedly). If you die in the game, you die in real life.
So what’s the big deal? It’s an interesting premise, so it can’t be that bad. Well: It has a PG-13 rating. The CGI is terrible. Frankie Muniz wears a backwards visor. Jimmi Simpson is run over by a horse-drawn carriage. And this Letterboxd user points out, “there’s a scene where a guy is washing dishes but the dishes are red solo cups.”
The reason why I love Stay Alive so much is because it’s a perfect time capsule of mid-2000s horror, obsessed with both technology and moral panic (following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, people believed video games cause school shootings; this, of course, isn’t true). Stay Alive wasn’t the only movie from that era to play with these themes—One Missed Call, The Ring, and Pulse all explore our relationship with technology and violence with varying degrees of success. But it’s one of the only movies to capture 2000s gaming culture in a way that makes you wish you could turn back time.
Stay Alive is currently free to stream on Hoopla and available to rent via AppleTV.
All this talk about bad 2000s teen slashers is making me feel emo. While I sharpen my eyeliner, let me know your thoughts on Stay Alive on X and Instagram: @ashjenexi
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