‘Stay Out Stay Alive’ Review
Stars: Brie Mattson, Brandon Wardle, Sage Mears, Christina July Kim, William Romano-Pugh, David Fine, Barbara Crampton | Written and Directed by Dean Yurke
Another generic (and not very good) name for a low budget horror movie, so it’s fair to say that I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from Stay Out Stay Alive.
I’m glad to report though that this isn’t quite as generic as I expected and there is plenty of things to enjoy here. I was not surprised at all when I looked up director Dean Yurke and discovered that before this, his directorial début, he has worked a lot in visual effects and in big shows or films such as Loki, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and much much more. And it shows because despite a low budget the effects used here a very good on the whole. Clearly, they would have been even better with a little bit more money but Yurke doesn’t go overboard and limits the use, with some moments really effective. I enjoyed plenty of the cinematography too, the underground caves look good and when the rain hits both the caves and the forest above them look grimy and terrifying as the characters attempt to stay alive.
As expected when I saw her name on the cast list, Barbara Crampton puts in the best performance. At first I thought she featured in a very small cameo but it does become a bit more than that. When on screen she is head and shoulders above the rest of the cast in acting ability. This would happen if almost anyone was on screen alongside Crampton though. That said, the rest of the cast do struggle with some of the dialogue. Dialogue that is the worst part of the script. The only actor in the leading roles who rises above it somewhat is Brie Mattson as Bridget. She’s confident and easy to watch, all eyes are on her when she’s on screen.
The other bad, or maybe odd part of the script for me was that the group of friends found a goldmine and this is the reason they stay where they are. They expect to become rich from taking all this gold but I’m not sure that most people would know what to do with nuggets of gold?! I certainly wouldn’t! It seems an odd choice to keep the friends in that place.
Unfortunately, the use of caves doesn’t work with any tension. There are a couple of jump scares because of a sudden loud noise but there’s no sense of claustrophobia, mainly because the characters slip in and out of the caves. This changes somewhat when the rain comes down but not enough.
There’s a couple of obvious influences here in The Blair Witch Project and My Bloody Valentine. The caves, ‘ghosts’ underground and the pick axe weapon all seem reminiscent of the horror classic, while the setting and sense that these characters are always going to be in this situation and very unlikely to come out of it, is very Blair Witch. Neither of these are bad things and these influences help the movie.
There are some interesting ideas in Stay Out Stay Alive and it often looks great but when the cast regularly struggle with the script and the viewer finds it hard to care about those characters at all, it doesn’t turn out quite as good as it could have. That said, with more experience directing I could see Dean Yurke progressing to great things in the genre.
