Admittedly, I’d forsaken television once I entered collage at the end of the last century and never looked back. As such, perhaps I’m not the “expert” in respect to the subject matter of Rafal Zielinski’s film–reality television–in that I’ve never taken in one episode of “Survivor” or “Big Brother.” However, to my credit, I did get to watch the second season of “The Real World” before higher learning beckoned, so I’m not at a complete loss with the pop culture phenomenon. This said, perhaps the topic of reality television isn’t the best topic for a film because, from what I gather, it has already grown to the point of self-parody on its own accord. Regardless, Reality Kills, a.k.a. Reality Check, comes across as a look warm effort at best, which doesn’t come close to possessing the bite it wishes it had.
Seven strangers comprised of four girls and three guys respectively–Isabel (Vanessa Christel Cambell), Serendipity (Natalia Cigliuti), Sal (Julie Ann Emery), and Charlotte (Courtney Peldon) and Crash (Timothy Lee DePriest), Gar (Nate Dushku), and Swope (Khalil Kain)–are selected for the newest season of the reality television program “True Livin,’” which takes place at a farmhouse. However, Brock (Sticky Fingaz), the producer, continues to tape once bodies begin appearing as the visceral nature of death brings with it a little too much reality for the cast.
My statement that reality television has unintentionally satirized itself comes across in Zielinski’s over-the-top typecasting, which–from what I understand–is statically representative. We are presented with a bisexual woman, a gay goth, a redneck, an aspiring actress, a virgin–basically hyper exaggerated ideologies which are set to crash and burn from the get-go. Obviously, this is the reel-time producer’s intention as he prompts his “actors” (which Zielinski is pretty much preaching to the choir in that most everyone has accepted the fact that the cast of such shows have acting backgrounds) to kick up more dust in order to ignite viewer interest and boost ratings. With that said, the only other notable aspect of Reality Kills are the occasional one-liners which frizzle shortly after they are delivered.
Considering Zielinski’s satirical balloon had a hole in it before he even tried to blow it up, the plot itself trudges along as Brock diligently films in the wake of a killer’s rampage (who is a Ghostface look alike) and since everyone is a stranger to the next, the murderer could be anyone. Yes, there’s foreshadowing, but it can’t really be labeled as such in that it is so heavy-handed that only those that aren’t watching the film are left up in the air as to the identity of the killer. This said, there’s nothing left so say for Zielinski’s film.
Reality Kills was dead on arrival before the cameras even began to roll as the script defeats its own purposes as the director attempts to move the action along with more flaccid social commentary in the form of a producer who continues to film amid a killer’s rampage as we are given “real” reality (I don’t believe this is what Jean Baudrillard had in mind). Granted, unbeknownst to me, the characters could be wryly fabricated quips of some of the more well-known figures in the history of reality television, but this would be a moot point in the grander scheme of things. In short, though attempting to say something, Rafal Zielinski’s work comes across as a graduate writing effort at best. However, you do have to give him credit for one thing: Unlike some filmmakers, you can’t say he didn’t try.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
