It’s a candid camer style show that just started on Sci-Fi. The problem is the video is too good-I’t not hidden camera, they get shots that could only come from a guy standing 2 feet away with a $50,000 camera.
(but I still laughed)
I only saw part of one show, the one with the pseudo-nekkid guy with red stuff all over hisself.
I didn’t laugh, but the staff (on the show) did. Musta been funny.
My sense of humor has been poop for the last few weeks. 
This b’longs in Cafe Society.
Peace,
mangeorge
From what I’ve seen of the ads (I refuse to watch the show), this is going to be funny until some unwitting participant keels over dead from heart failure after watching a loved one supposedly getting killed or being chased by a gun toting gorilla.
Personally, I feel it is an all time low for the tube. This is ‘reality television’ descended into a realm of the pruriently macabre. Putting people through an emotional wringer solely for entertainment purposes is twisted and distinctly sadistic.
As to a factual basis, producers will do almost anything for ratings. This show is proof of that. Since ‘snuff’ films cannot be broadcast, they will have to settle for second best. ‘Scare Tactics’ scrapes sludge from the barrel’s bottom.
No unwitting participant will keel over because there are no unwitting participants. It’s a hoax perpetrated upon the audience.
The General Questions forum is for questions with factual answers. Since this is about a television program, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
I, too, saw part of one episode. What passes for dialog on that show put me off immediately.
Scare Tactics is just the tip of the iceberg.
Sci-fi Channel seems to have no idea at all what interests their key demographic. They spend money on garbage (Dream Team/Scare Tactics/John Edward) and advertise it * ad nauseum *, virtually guaranteeing that any thinking being will lunge for the remote control whenever one of these shows comes on.
They have recently developed a strange desire to become the Nick at Nite of bad science fiction. They recently began showing Land of the Giants reruns (hasn’t aged well), Battlestar Galactica, and (god help us) Knight Rider. They’re also rerunning dead end series that didn’t even last long enough for decent syndication (Strange Days, Roar).
I saw that show too. I agree that the camera angles (we counted 5 in one scene) make it unbelivable.
The one that really made me not believe it was the one with the gorilla escaping from its cage. You would have to be a complete and absolute moron to not think it was a man in a suit.
I like the Sci Fi channel better without their original shows.
To the programmers of Sci Fi-stick with MST3K, Dark Shadows, Tales from the Darkside and showing movies.
Well Guin, I’d be with you, except that they picked up Stargate. Since I love that show, I have to hope against all hope, that they won’t destroy it the same way they did Sliders. So far it hasn’t been bad, obviously changing some styles, but keeping to the same general tone of before. Although for a while, Stargate wasn’t certain for a season 7, so that made me all the more upset that they came out with a new series in Tremors. I have a hard time believing that making a bad in my opinionseries off of a bad movie, is a better decision that renewing a series that has a fairly loyal and broad fan base.
Oh no-I didn’t mean just those shows. And yes, they do some good luck with shows that have already been established. (Witness MST3K)
If the show is fake, what’s the deal with the lawsuit? Did Sci-Fi spend money to sue themselves just to create publicity?
That would be brilliant.
I agree it has to be fake. Someone would have been shot dead by now otherwise.
What about the recent trend I’ve noticed, in which right after MST3K they run a low budget movie, or dubious remake of an old movie like Journey to the Center of the Earth or …what was it, Mystery Island?
How about an MST3K marathon sometime?
It makes sense if the show is fake. I find it hard to believe that lawyers would let this thing get greenlighted with the risks involved. It makes “Fear Factor” look like “Romper Room”.
Sci fi channel has demonstrated it has nothing but contempt for scifi fans. The president has gone so far as to say that science ficitons is not all about aliens and spaceships.
Sure, she’s right, but that doesn’t mean you replace all the aliens and spaceships shows with woo-woo crap and lame ‘reality’ shows.
Someone I knwo compared SciFi to OMNI magazine of years ago. OMNI had lots of science and scifi, and a little tiny section of woowoo stuff. The woowoo stuff was popular so it got more, and more, and more space. Soon all of OMNI was filled with woowoo nonsense. OMNI isn’t around anymore. Its sucks when your core audience leaves and all you’ve got left are fickle newagers.
I suspect that soon a video game company that bought ads based on old SFC demongraphics, is going to come into the SFC president’s office and pull a Mortal Combat style finishing move on her while yelling “I can’t sell Dead or Alive variation 13 to a bunch of John Edward watching housefrau!”
That’s not a recent phenomenon. Back before they had original programming Sci-Fi was nothing but reruns of old genre shows, many of them having lasted one season or less. I actually prefer that early era of Sci-Fi as I feel that with the exception of Farscape, there has been nothing to justify Sci-Fi’s move to original programming.
I liked some of sfc’s stuff. Children of Dune was ok. Not great, but ok. At least they didn’t try to drag it out into a full series, and if you managed to see each episode only once, in sequence, It was a story.
I’m sure a lot of die-hard Dune fans hated it, though. 
Farscape’s good, but you have to stick with it. Otherwise you get lost.
Why can’t there be one channel run by it’s viewers?
G’by John Edward.
Okay, I have watched the show because I am a big fan of hidden camera shows. I don’t believe the show is “fake.” Here’s why: the shots you are probably talking about are shot later or earlier than the actual action to add continuity to the scene. After reading this thread, I saw an episode of the show and I took note of the camera angles. If you notice, when they show the close-ups, only the “actors” not the victims are in the shot. This has been done in other hidden video shows like the “Just Kidding” series. They shoot a generic scene of what is supposed to be happening, then the footage with the victim using hidden/disguised cameras and intersperse them to give it continuity and so you can tell what is supposed to be going on. This is related to the news interview with one camera where the interview is done first with the camera on the subject and then the camera is set up to take footage of the interviewer nodding in response to the answers. The scenes are then intercut. The interview is not “fake,” but it’s done for the viewer’s benefit to give a continuity of sorts. Go back and check out the scenes. The close-ups are of the actors/accomplices and the footage of the victims always looks like it’s shot from a hidden camera or a high-powered lens. That’s my theory.