INT: William Brent & Matthew Peterman

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

ARROW IN THE HEAD
INTERVIEWS
WILLIAM BRENT & MATTHEW PETERMAN

March
24th 2006 sees the Theatrical release of the horror and video game themed
effort STAY ALIVE. To be honest I initially had no intention of seeing it.
PG -13 rating + Frank Muniz + Hollywood Picture distributed = I’m too old
for this crap! But this insightful interview with the team behind the film;
William Brent (Writer) and Matthew Peterman (Writer/Director) that is, and
the decent trailer convinced me to give it a look! Here’s what the STAY
ALIVE boys had to say about their baby!

Would
you say that you guys are horror fans? If so, what are your favorite fear
flicks?

Yes.
Halloween. The Omen. The Ring. The Shining. Alice Sweet Alice. Carrie.
The Exorcist.

 

How
did the Stay Alive project come about?

 

Growing up, there are two hugely important things in a young man’s life:
movies and video games.

We wanted to create a film where we could blur the lines
between the world of a video game and the real world (without cheesy virtual
reality). The first script we sold was an espionage film that did just that
– but it’s been dying a slow death on a shelf at Universal for years.

However, we still loved the idea of using a video game as a
story engine. So, against all advice, we decided to write Stay Alive,
another ‘game in a movie’ project. We then built the game in the movie
around a character we had researched for another movie idea: Elizabeth
Bathory, the real-life Countess who butchered young girls and bathed in
their blood to stay young.

We
shopped Stay Alive to studios but they didn’t want to do a video game
movie that wasn’t either an adaptation of an existing game or a remake of
another horror movie. That forced us to put the movie together from the
ground up – securing the first major piece of financing ourselves. Before
we knew it, it was a year later and we were in New Orleans shooting the
movie.

 

Taking into account the “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Agent Cody Banks”
kiddie history that Frankie Muniz has tagged to him and the heat that you’d
get from genre fans due to it…what was it about him that made him your
ideal choice to play the character of Swink?

 

We met
with Frankie and immediately saw his passion for the project – and he wasn’t
even pushing to be the lead character. Frankie passed on bigger parts and
much higher pay to do this movie. He saw this – and so did we – as a chance
to show a slightly different side of Frankie. We wouldn’t say this is the
complete reinvention of Frankie Muniz, but it’s definitely a transition for
him into other things. Frankie isn’t the lead in this film – he probably
lost money on this gig. But he is an actor playing a character. And he’s
great in the part.

What
kind of violence should we expect from the film? Suggested? Graphic? A
little bit of both?

 

Definitely a little bit of both. First off, we intended Stay Alive to
be rated R. However, we were never interested in making a campy teen horror
flick. While we love certain movies like that, we were looking to do
something a little different. Although originally rated R, we always
intended to play around with the concept of implied gore while still holding
onto a certain amount of “violent death realism”.

 

It’s
like, if we can set the stage and plant something into the subconscious mind
of the audience, their own sick imaginations might create something far more
frightening than anything we may have introduced on screen. That means
every person in the audience can have their own uniquely horrific
interpretation of that special violent moment. In the end, we truly believe
we’ve pushed the PG-13 rating to its limits. To compare Stay Alive
to a movie like When a Stranger Calls would be like comparing
South Park to Charlie Brown.

 

Any
visual effects in the film? If so, are we talking practical, CGI or a mix of
the two?

 

The
focus of Stay Alive is a next generation horror survival game, so
naturally we tackled a lot of visual effects for that. It was important to
us to make the game to look and feel like a next gen game – not too cheap
but not too overdone. We tried hard to stay away from the Hollywood movie
version of a video game. To help keep us honest, we brought on Cliff
Blezinski as our game consultant. He helped us make sure that the game in
the movie would be on par with titles gamers could buy and play at home.

 

Most
of game-related movies don’t really understand gamer culture. Besides being
lifelong gamers ourselves, we’ve written more than a few film scripts with
heavy video game use within the story. We’ve also written game design docs
for people like John Woo, Sega, Zombie Games, and Universal Interactive.
With this combination of our game/movie background and Cliffy’s expertise,
we hoped not to fall into the category of no understanding gamers. Overall,
our goal was to respect the intelligence of both video game and horror movie
fans alike.

 

Any
female nudity in the picture, yes, we care (well I do anyways)!

 

Unfortunately the answer is no. But goddammit we tried hard to get Jimmi
Simpson naked.
 

 

What type of game play should we expect from the video game that will be
released alongside the
film?

 

The
game is a “rated M for Mature” game with some naughty, bloody action. Our
characters spend some quality time blowing away droves of undead
ten-year-old schoolgirls.

Originally, the intention was to create a game to be released day-and-date
with the film. Unfortunately, games can take more than twice as long as a
film to produce. We begged the powers-that-be to finance the Stay Alive
video game so it could be released day-and-date with the film.
Unfortunately, investors weren’t willing to finance a game based on our
independent horror movie before it had distribution. Bummer. Currently, the
game is still in the development planning stages but if all goes well,
people will have something playable with the DVD release.

Disney
is distributing the film. How did that come about? And why did you think
they’d be the best company to put out your horror film?

We
weren’t terribly involved with that aspect of the process but it went down
like this: Spyglass shopped the trailer around and made a distribution deal
with Hollywood Pictures. The cool thing is Buena Vista Distribution is
releasing Stay Alive on the Hollywood Pictures label. If they are
happy with the outcome of the movie, Buena Vista may re-launch Hollywood
Pictures as their version of Dimension or Screen Gems. As a result, the
marketing team is trying some new things.

Does
the film have franchise potential? If so, is a sequel something you guys
would be interested in tackling down the road?

 

You
bet your sweet ass it has franchise potential. We originally conceived
Stay Alive as a trilogy because the concept and story has so many more
layers to and a lot of room to grow. This first film has only tickled the
surface and would love to tackle that beast.

 

What kind of distribution can we expect for the film? Wide, limited, STD?

 

Wide. We just don’t know how wide yet. 2000 plus screens is all we know
now.

What
would you like to hear audience members say when coming out of Stay Alive
screenings?

 

That
was something a little different. And more importantly, it was worth the
ten bucks.

 

What’s next up for you guys? Any other projects on the horizon?

 

We’re
in the middle of writing a new script. It’s in the vein of Flatliners
set on the campus of the Vatican’s exorcism school in Rome. We’ve also got
a handful of projects set up at different studios. In the meantime we’ve
applied for jobs in the Best Buy video game department.

 

What were the first drinks you lads kicked back at the Stay Alive wrap
party?

 

This
wasn’t at the wrap party but…When we were deep in the suck of putting this
movie together, the fate of the project had come down to Paramount Pictures
completing the last part of financing – or no movie. The two of us were
waiting for the call at our favorite watering hole, Cabo Cantina. Soon, the
word came down that Paramount was a no-go. Stay Alive was dead
deadski. As a toast to our now dead movie, we ordered a round of Washington
Apple shots.

 

Before those shots even got to our table, we got
another call telling us that Spyglass – who had previously backed out of the
running – was back in. And just like that, those shots went down. So for us
it’s been a real battle to get this movie made and, at the end of the day,
we’re really luck to be in the position we’re in. We’re just video game and
movie fans like so many other people. The harsh swings of Hollywood.
 

Will you stay alive on March
24th?

I’d like to thank
William Brent and Matthew
Peterman for
this “telling” (for me anyways) interview
and would like to wish them the best with the film! ROCK ON GUYS!

 

VISIT THE
OFFICIAL STAY ALIVE SITE HERE