Stay Alive (15)

If you’ve been spending too much time glued to your PS2, this game-themed teen horror involving a group of teens tortured by a videogame may well wean you off it... You see, once you die in this game, you die for real.

After his gaming geek buddy buys the farm, Jamie Oliver-lookalike Jon Foster (Malcolm In The Middle) and Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill) spend the rest of this tawdry 85 minutes trying to escape a claret-splattered demise at the hands of the evil Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Alas, the virtual world in which much of this film’s time is spent can’t improve on the laboured TV-trained acting, even if the actual in-game deaths are surprisingly imaginative and gorily executed. Gamers will wince at this irritatingly clichéd depiction of their favourite pastime; while the rest just won’t get it. Stay Alive? Stay away, more like.

DVD Extras:

Extras-wise, there’s nada. And for that we’re eternally grateful.

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