If you’ve been watching the SciFi channel at all in the last few days, you’ve doubtless seen one of the billions of commercials for Scare Tactics, the new show where they scare unwitting victims half to death. Before it even premieres, they already have a lawsuit filed against them. I have to say, I am very happy about this. What kind of idiot sets up their friends to be frightened so badly? What if they have a heart condition? The whole idea is just incredibly stupid and mean.
It IS mean.
I’ve never thought practical jokes in which the victim is terribly frightened to be funny in any way whatsoever. I guess cruelty has never amused me. Any “friend” who did such a thing to me would never hear from me again, except through my attorney.
There’s a difference, of course, in shows in which the people willingly go into “haunted” houses. They’re expecting to be scared. Scaring the hell out of an unwitting victim is just sadistic.
I gotta say though, the scariest part is going to be seeing Shanon Doherty in every episode . . .
I think there was a Twilight Zone episode where a man is arrested and scared by police officers who I believe accuse him of murder. He freaks, they drive him “downtown” and lead him into a room where all of his friends are gathered. The “arrest” was a joke for his surprise birthday party. The episode ends with him keeling over from a heart attack due to the shock.
This is just a profoundly bad idea.
I am so on board with watching this show on a regular basis. I have been clamouring for this show since I first saw the commercial previews. Then again, I have no problems with being scared out of my wits unknowingly for fun and profit.
No sh*t, it’s a bad idea.
They’re getting their reality series ideas from old episodes of The Simpsons, fercryinoutloud.
Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s have a show where a masked in truder breaks into a woman’s home, holds a knife to her throat and rapes her.
But then it turns out the “intruder” is really her husband, playing a “joke” on her.
Because we know it’s not a “real” rape, her screams of terror will be entertaining and amusing.
Wait, I have a better idea. Let’s tell all the people involved in making this show that we want them to particpate in a reality TV “Mock” execution, and then really shoot them.
Now that would be funny.
Shades of The Game with Sean Penn and Michael Douglas. I really liked that movie. Not sure I would like it if a friend did it to me though. Not sure I’d go so far as decry it as outrageous and sue, either.
Now come on, when you have you ever seen a straight up intruder-rape scene in a science fiction flick? Now, you put an alien mask on that husband and you’ve got yourself a show. 
Throw a party for the guys who produce this show. After averyone arrives, have a bunch of guys dressed in Arabic clothing and carrying realistic-looking (but fake) guns break in and take them all hostage. Our “terrorists” will be actual arabic-speaking men and women who will do stuff like read from the Koran and hang banners with Muslim Fundie slogans on them. Eventually we’ll reveal the whole thing to be a joke, and inform them that they are the subject of the latest episode of Scare Tactics.
Want to bet that would be the last we ever saw of that show?
I read the link to the lawsuit, and laughed. I was imagining being one of the two people in the desert attacked by a “monster” in a rubber suit. It’s funny to me, because I’ve imagined what I would do in other similar scenarios (hey, sometimes it’s hard for me to sleep) and decided long ago that I would fight like a cornered animal. I had an odd mental picture of me charging the “alien,” screaming “You won’t get ME alive!” The guy in that rubber suit would be lucky if I didn’t break any of his limbs. 'Course, then I’d get sued. :rolleyes:
Something else ocurred to me about the episode I mentioned above. What if one of the two people not in on the joke had produced a gun nobody knew about and emptied it into the guy playing the “monster”? I mean, put people into situations where they feel genuinely frightened and threatened, and they can become very dangerous.
This show is a disaster waiting to happen. What TV exec okayed this?
Stop giving FOX ideas. Stop it right now, or humanity is doomed.
I’m surpised Scare Tactics has only gotten a civil lawsuit, from what I’ve read about what they do they could very easily be facing criminal charges or end up on the wrong end of justifiable homicide. sigh why can’t the Sci-Fi channel just do good science fiction instead of a plethora of horror, pesudoscience, and just-plain-scary concept shows (Tremors the series? Huh?)? Just give me B5, Stargate SG-1, Farscape, Dune, and leave the Reality TV to Fox.
That actually is a real rape. Sexual intercouse without permission is rape husband or not.
A show like this is the natural following from a network that cancels Farscape, the best show on television.
I read that as BS, and I was thinking “Isn’t that what we’re here complaining about?”
's funny. I thought Tremors was Sci-fi.
Anxiously looking forward to the premire of “Tremors-the Series” Friday night.
I’m with Lizard on this subject. Truly terrified people tend to go one of two ways–vegetable or killing machine. Someone is going to get hospitalized as a result of this $#!*. Regrettably, it probably won’t be any of the morons who green-lighted it.
On the bright side, I think B5 is restarting in about a week, so I don’t have to shell out for the DVD collection yet. I’m also sorta looking forward to Tremors; I don’t know how it’ll hold up in a series, but I found Burt funny as hell in the movies.
Is it possible that this isn’t a reality show, after all? I can see a network staging these things, and then cooking up a lawsuit to make it look authentic. For that matter, I’ve suspected for a while that most “reality” shows are at least partially scripted.