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Billy Garcia, best known from his time on Survivor: Cook Islands, is a friend of mine and sent me this exclusive account of his time filming the reality horror film, Reality Horror Night. He’s a terrific guy and his article is a fun read. You can find out more about Billy on his MySpace site & about Reality Horror Night on the official site. [Photo: Reality Exploits, DO NOT re-use without permission]
Reality Horror Night is a movie conceived by Executive Producer Sean Pomper and Produced by Sean along with Karen Katz, Neal Bellin, Gregg Luckman & Seth Zuckerman. The basic premise is something I think we’ve all thought about but never voiced aloud.
What if a bunch of reality stars played a game where the eliminated player gets killed for real?
Come on. Admit it. Every reality tv fan at one time or another wondered about that very thing. Well, thanks to Sean Pomper we get so see that manifest itself on the big screen!
[Photo: Reality Horror Night - DO NOT re-use without permission]
The movie shoot began much the same way a reality show begins…with the entire cast present and the “rules” of how the game works being explained. The biggest difference was that Sean and Karen were especially accomodating, which is not how reality tv producers work. The reality producers want things to be tough on the cast so that there’s drama on the show.
In the case of this movie shoot, we had a script by Nickholas Mark Harding and Douglas Elford Argent based on Sean Pomper’s idea to create the drama. So everything was especially easy-going and light hearted. In fact, Jason Prager of Beauty and the Geek and I were especially inseparable.
Even though this was a movie shoot, to get in the spirit of the “Characters” Jason and I made an alliance. We called ourselves Survivor and the Geek. VH1 take a close look….there’s a great show right there in front of you.
The game aspect of it was very much like a reality show on set. Some were there to enjoy the experience of shooting the movie. Some of us played the game. Since I got to become the Fight Choreographer/Stunt Coordinator and get to cast parts 2 and 3, Mr. Pomper, I now declare myself the winner of the game!
The geek is a very good second place. ha-ha-ha! (Thanks Sean for all of the great opportunies) Anyway, I don’t want to give any of the plot away but the selection process for who gets eliminated is a great part of this movie that reality fans will love! There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. But again, I can’t give it away. I’ll just say that the premise and the actual script came together with the Reality Stars and the making of this movie. It all became one cohesive production that, like proud mamas and papas, I’m sure Sean, Karen, Neal, Gregg and Seth are gonna love showing us off to the world when the movie is released! I think I’m getting too deep with this. ha-ha-ha!
[Photo: Reality Horror Night - DO NOT re-use without permission]
I can honestly say that filming this movie was WAY more fun than filming Survivor. I know, suffering is part of Survivor! Duh! My point is, having been on the king of all reality shows, I can say that the idea Sean created and the way it was executed (pun intended!) on film is very true to the Reality TV genre but without the actual backstabbing (another intended pun!)
With our “us against the world” mindset we got to enjoy the fun side of it all! We could act like we’re stabbing each other in the back with out actually doing it. I think that will show up on screen. Thus, I think fans of the reality competition shows will watch with the same excitement they feel when they watch their favorite show. In fact, I think some will watch with even more excitement because they won’t have to wait, episode after episode, for something entertaining to happen and we all will finally get to see that little sinister idea that we’ve all had pop in our heads at some point happen. Kill ‘em for real!