Editorials
Chiller’s “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” Was “Mythbusters” Meets “Fear Factor” for Horror Fans [TV Terrors]
For this month’s installment of “TV Terrors” we revisit the horror reality special “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” which aired on Chiller TV for Friday the 13th in July 2012.
By the early aughts, the horror cable network Chiller TV had reached the point to where they were trotting out their own original series’ and movies. Among them was their heavily advertised attempt at a reality series entitled “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” The premise of the one off special was essentially “Fear Factor” and “Mythbusters” mixed with a hard shot of horror. The hosts would not only test certain situations in the horror genre, but also partook in “challenges” related to horror movies. It didn’t actually dissect the genre, or bring it down to reality as much as, say, “The Zombie Survival Guide.” Instead, it was unabashedly a horror reality show.
Filmed at Camp NoBeBoSco (where the original Friday the 13th was filmed; they state it at least six times in the two hour show), and hosted by actors Anthony Marks, Morgan West, and Annie Unnold, “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” offered up six challenges to our trio of hosts, allowing them to test their mettle. Interspliced are interviews with doctors, professors, and horror performers, all of whom lend some genuinely good nuggets of knowledge. Expert EJ Snider, especially, disseminates shockingly useful information about what to do if you’re stabbed, how to evade a serial killer or home invader, how not to approach a bear, and how to increase your chances of surviving a shark attack or being buried alive and living to tell the tale.
Should the occasion ever present itself, of course…
The first and cheesiest segment of the bunch, “Would You Survive a Zombie Invasion?” is centered on the idea of the hosts wrestling with a zombie double to see if they could survive. They’re placed in a circle ring where they duke it out with the zombie. Anthony gets a Muscle Zombie, Morgan gets a Business Zombie, and Annie gets a Pregnant Zombie. It’s considerably lightweight comedy fodder with the goal of getting the zombie out of the ring before it bites you. Only Morgan really loses the challenge, despite the best efforts from “expert zombie fighter” Alfonso Moretti. The segment is generous with its use of zombie movie clips, featuring snippets of the original Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead ‘04, and the TV Movie “Remains.”
The second segment, “How to Survive an Animal Attack” is a challenge mainly centered on Annie making her way through a maze to find a key. Within the maze there are a ton of live rats brushing past her. It’s a silly but short segment. Third segment “The Ice Bath Challenge” is the obligatory T&A segment where our hosts strip down to their skivvies. Annie challenges Anthony and Morgan to get into an ice bath and free themselves from shackles with hidden keys. It’s a cheap excuse to get them buck naked and bare chested. This was 2012, after all.
Segment Three, “Can You Survive on a Diet of Blood?” is the obligatory gross out segment. Annie and Morgan are challenged by Anthony to consume blood based foods without tapping out, lest they lose the round. In the challenge they eat things like blood sausage, tripe, hearts, head cheese, pig brains, fish eyeballs, and, of course, rocky mountain oysters. Annie has the weakest constitution of the pair but despite tapping out twice, she does finish with the win. The highlight of the segment is when she spits a fish eyeball clear across the room. The loser Morgan is forced to drink breast milk as the punishment. Do with that what you want.
The “Dead Silence” challenge tasks the trio with going through an obstacle course without making a sound. The catch is: for every sound they make they’re jolted by a shock collar. Despite the promise of big laughs, the hosts make it through the course fairly unphased.
The “Can you Survive Being Buried Alive?” challenge finds Anthony being “buried alive” in a coffin. He has to find the right code for a locked cell phone in order to call for an escape. However that becomes tough as the coffin begins filling with blood and bugs. It’s another segment that doesn’t last very long, and we know Anthony is in no danger, but it’s fun seeing him screech with the hissing cockroaches crawling up his face. Last but not least, there’s the “Face Your Fears” Challenge. Here, with the assistance of scream queen Suzi Lorraine, they’re tasked with picking through grue and slime with their teeth in 45 seconds. If they lose, they don’t make it to the sequel!
Morgan picks through chopped liver and fava beans to find Hannibal Lecter’s mask; Anthony digs through spoiled meat and maggots to find a set of car keys a la Dawn of the Dead; Annie digs through dog food to find a bone a la Cujo, and she then digs through pea soup to find a crucifix a la The Exorcist; and Anthony wades through pigs’ blood to find a tiara a la Carrie. Finally, Morgan digs through spoiled meat and cockroaches to find a meat hook a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The closing segment is fairly fun and Suzi Lorraine injects some surefire zest and sass to balance out the trio’s lack of banter or commentary. It ends not so much as “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” but more “Fear Factor: Horror Movie Edition.”
There were definite promises of a follow up special, but despite Chiller airing multiple encore broadcasts shortly afterwards, and playing it through the summer and during Halloween, there was never an actual sequel to the special. But if you loved the gross out reality shows of the early aughts, “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” definitely hit all the right spots.
Chiller TV sadly folded in the very end of 2017, officially going out of business and off the air from all cable television services. The website also went down, eventually folded into SYFY. For all intents and purposes, “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” is a cheesy but interesting relic from a time where niche television networks were dying out oh-so-slowly.
Is It On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming? There was no official release of “Can You Survive a Horror Movie?” on Digital, DVD, or Blu-ray. Once Chiller folded, a lot of their original titles remained in limbo. On the bright side, there are clips of the segments from the special, as well as bumpers promoting the program, that can be found online.
Since this is the 50th Edition of “TV Terrors” I’d love to give a huge thank you to the kind readers at Bloody Disgusting, for the support from my colleagues and friends, and to my editors John Squires and Brad Miska; truly two gentlemen I’ve had a great time working with.
Thank you all!
Editorials
Silly, Self-Aware ‘Amityville Christmas Vacation’ Is a Welcome Change of Pace [The Amityville IP]
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
After a number of bloated runtimes and technically inept entries, it’s something of a relief to watch Amityville Christmas Vacation (2022). The 55-minute film doesn’t even try to hit feature length, which is a wise decision for a film with a slight, but enjoyable premise.
The amusingly self-aware comedy is written and directed by Steve Rudzinski, who also stars as protagonist Wally Griswold. The premise is simple: a newspaper article celebrating the hero cop catches the attention of B’n’B owner Samantha (Marci Leigh), who lures Wally to Amityville under the false claim that he’s won a free Christmas stay.
Naturally it turns out that the house is haunted by a vengeful ghost named Jessica D’Angelo (Aleen Isley), but instead of murdering him like the other guests, Jessica winds up falling in love with him.
Several other recent Amityville films, including Amityville Cop and Amityville in Space, have leaned into comedy, albeit to varying degrees of success. Amityville Christmas Vacation is arguably the most successful because, despite its hit/miss joke ratio, at least the film acknowledges its inherent silliness and never takes itself seriously.
In this capacity, the film is more comedy than horror (the closest comparison is probably Amityville Vibrator, which blended hard-core erotica with references to other titles in the “series”). The jokes here are enjoyably varied: Wally glibly acknowledges his racism and excessive use of force in a way that reflects the real world culture shift around criticisms of police work; the last names of the lovers, as well the title of the film, are obvious homages to the National Lampoon’s holiday film; and the narrative embodies the usual festive tropes of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies.
This self-awareness buys the film a certain amount of goodwill, which is vital considering Rudzinski’s clear budgetary limitations. Jessica’s ghost make-up is pretty basic, the action is practically non-existent, and the whole film essentially takes place in a single location. These elements are forgivable, though audiences whose funny bone isn’t tickled will find the basic narrative, low stakes, and amateur acting too glaring to overlook. It must be acknowledged that in spite of its brief runtime, there’s still an undeniable feeling of padding in certain dialogue exchanges and sequences.
Despite this, there’s plenty to like about Amityville Christmas Vacation.
Rudzinski is the clear stand-out here. Wally is a goof: he’s incredibly slow on the uptake and obsessed with his cat Whiskers. The early portions of the film lean on Wally’s inherent likeability and Rudzinski shares an easy charm with co-star Isley, although her performance is a bit more one-note (Jessica is mostly confused by the idiot who has wandered into her midst).
Falling somewhere in the middle are Ben Dietels as Rick (Ben Dietels), Wally’s pathetic co-worker who has invented a family to spend the holidays with, and Zelda (Autumn Ivy), the supernatural case worker that Jessica Zooms with for advice on how to negotiate her newfound situation.
The other actors are less successful, particularly Garrett Hunter as ghost hunter Creighton Spool (Scott Lewis), as well as Samantha, the home owner. Leigh, in particular, barely makes an impression and there’s absolutely no bite in her jealous threats in the last act.
Like most comedies, audience mileage will vary depending on their tolerance for low-brow jokes. If the idea of Wally chastising and giving himself a pep talk out loud in front of Jessica isn’t funny, Amityville Christmas Vacation likely isn’t for you. As it stands, the film’s success rate is approximately 50/50: for every amusing joke, there’s another one that misses the mark.
Despite this – or perhaps because of the film’s proximity to the recent glut of terrible entries – Amityville Christmas Vacation is a welcome breath of fresh air. It’s not a great film, but it is often amusing and silly. There’s something to be said for keeping things simple and executing them reasonably well.
That’s a lesson that other indie Amityville filmmakers could stand to learn.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Recurring Gag: The film mines plenty of jokes from characters saying the quiet part (out) loud, including Samantha’s delivery of “They’re always the people I hate” when Wally asks how he won a contest he didn’t enter.
- Holiday Horror: There’s a brief reference that Jessica died in an “icicle accident,” which plays like a perfect blend between a horror film and a Hallmark film.
- Best Line: After Jessica jokes about Wally’s love of all things cats to Zelda, calling him the “cat’s meow,” the case worker’s deadpan delivery of “Yeah, that sounds like an inside joke” is delightful.
- Christmas Wish: In case you were wondering, yes, Santa Claus (Joshua Antoon) does show up for the film’s final joke, though it’s arguably not great.
- Chainsaw Award: This film won Fangoria’s ‘Best Amityville’ Chainsaw award in 2023, which makes sense given how unique it is compared to many other titles released in 2022. This also means that the film is probably the best entry we’ll discuss for some time, so…yay?
- ICYMI: This editorial series was recently included in a profile in the The New York Times, another sign that the Amityville “franchise” will never truly die.
Next time: we’re hitting the holidays in the wrong order with a look at November 2022’s Amityville Thanksgiving, which hails from the same creative team as Amityville Karen <gulp>
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