First of all, do you understand what is a REAL horror movie? Imagine this: a politician breaks every ethics rule in the book WHILE being an asshole and is caught on tape. That same "public servant" then becomes a reality TV star because far too many of us want to see a broken, ethically pliable stereotype of a politician (Blagojevich) succeed in some reality psuedo-games (The Apprentice).
To be honest, that's what I want. But I want it all the way. I mean, fuck these reality shows that try to create a conflict between groups of people strung together out of some fabricated social connection. Let's do those shows the right way! Let's do them like From Dusk Til Dawn.
Let's get the run-down first. Well, after one of the best. fucking. openings. in film history, From Dusk Til Dawn (FDTD) moves quickly from buddy outlaw movie (think Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid meets Fear & Loathing) to action horror movie (Feast) in just about 30 minutes. It's a total head-fake of an opening, and that's how reality shows should be.
The subjects should have no idea what the show is "about". If you must, tell them a lie. If you can't get away with that, tell them nothing at all. Hell, tell them they're getting together with like-minded people who are interested in coagulating their power into a cheese of social influence. I'm sure they'll bite.
These unaware groups should wander into a spectacularly lit playing-field (coliseum) which offers some variety of indigenous weaponry hidden to the contestants (maybe guitars in a music shop or bottles and pool-sticks in a bar, as in this film). This is where it will all go down.
In the film, the humans happen to find themselves in a vampire bar just in time for dinner. The new reality show will mirror FDTD and put one self-interested group in a dog-pit with another. The two will then resolve their issues (without intervention) as nature intended, thus saving the rest of us from either worshipping them or suffering their eventual offspring.
From this basic concept we would end up with fantastically-gripping shows like The Hipsters vs. The Popped Collars in a battle for the Social Networking Badge and "Who Is More Useless to Society?" starring Celebrities and The Beauty Pageant Parents. We could be entertained while solving many of society's issues - satisfying our blood-lust with the real thing rather than supplanting it with simply sending the losers back to the lives they led before their instant fame. Dammit, these people need punishment!! And it might as well be dished out by another equally contemptible group, right?
It's just too bad that a bad-ass Clooney-type won't be able to step in at the last minute and make sure no one wins.
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