William Brent Bell

  • Stay Alive (2006)

    Stay Alive (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) I could go on to live a long and fulfill life without ever hearing the cliché “If you die in the game, you die for real” ever again. But thanks to Hollywood, that’s not likely to happen—it’s the defining trope of the gaming-horror movie subgenre, and Stay Alive embraces it with a passion. Well, except that the death doesn’t immediately happen upon dying in the game—instead, the game is a way for Elizabeth Bathory is, I guess, be inspired as to how she will kill the gamer a few moments later in real life. Or something: Stay Alive is clear on the fact that if you die in the game, then you die in real-life, but the specifics are always hazy and subject to change according to the requirements of the screenwriters. This sloppy lack of rigour is one of many failings that condemns this mid-2000s teen horror film: To that, you could add uninspired characters, by-the-number horror sequences, William Brent Bell’s dull direction and a ridiculous portrayal of “gaming.” I’m going to be nicer than you’d expect about the obviously dated portrayal of mid-2000s computer graphics because that’s the most obvious target and we’re almost at the point where Stay Alive can be given the nice patina of retrogaming. In fact, I suspect that Stay Alive itself may appreciate a bit more over the next few years: As bad as it is, it can still be fun to watch as an endearing attempt at that era’s idea of teen horror and create the distance required for any mocking take. According to the usual nostalgia cycle, I give it about ten years before it’s fondly remembered by those born in 1990.

  • The Boy (2016)

    The Boy (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2016) I still can’t decide whether The Boy’s twist is ludicrous or lame. As horror movies go, it decidedly feels limp: As a young American comes to England to be a live-in nanny, she discovers that she’s been asked to care for … a porcelain doll. Except that the porcelain doll seems to move whenever she’s not looking. Any half-wit can propose the explanation with which the film comes up far too late; but the twist doesn’t excuse the rather lifeless way it exploits that development. Pretty much everything else about the film is strictly routine, from the growing suspicions of the heroine to the ominous vibes of the hunky visitor to the deluded masters of the house. It’s bland and boring and the predictable twist doesn’t do much to enliven things up when it’s followed by a sequence that’s been done (often better) in other slasher movies. There isn’t much to say about The Boy because there isn’t much in The Boy. Lauren Cohan and Rupert Evans are both unremarkable in the lead roles, and the same also goes for director William Brent Bell—the best he can manage are some eerie shots of a Victorian house … and most of the credit there goes to the set dressers anyway. Done according to the current standard of the horror genre but ultimately too dull to matter, The Boy is almost instantly forgettable.