Last weekend, we had the opportunity to meet with the stars of some of Sci Fi’s reality series. Among them were Travis Draft and Gabriel Pimentel of Scare Tactics . Both guys were enthusiastic about their involvement as actors on the show. Producer Scott Hallock was also there to talk about what goes into the making of the series.
Scare Tactics is a hidden-camera series in which people set up a friend or family member to be scared by the ST crew. The show puts the "victim" in a scary and sometimes completely silly situation and we get to see the mark get shocked, scared, confused or all of the above. Eventually, they do the big reveal, letting the person know they're on Scare Tactics.
One of the things I found most interesting about the show based on what Hallock said, is that it’s their intention to give the “victim” a good time. Sure, they want to scare the crap out of them but “fun” is their main goal. Sort of like a roller-coaster. Hallock said that sometimes after the prank is revealed to the mark, the person finds they had so much fun being scared that they want to set up one of their friends.
So how do you scare someone and also make it fun for them? According to Hallock, a good place to start is by finding out what phobias and major fears the victim has and then completely avoiding those when coming up with the concept for the bit. Hallock said, “People’s actual fears, we will not exploit. If someone is deathly afraid of spiders, they don’t get to be in a spider bit. If you’re afraid of monkeys, we’re not going to lock you in a monkey cage. We’re not going to lock anyone in anywhere.”
He also said they never physically trap people anywhere, though there are times when the victim believes they can’t get out of whatever situation they’re in. Given some of the pranks, it’s understandable that the victim might jump to that conclusion. Hallock explained, “People can always get out. If they want to leave a room or leave a situation, there’s always a way for people to get out. As I said, the show’s about having fun. Everyone’s set up by a friend. They’re supposed to be thrilled. They’re supposed to at the end of it go ‘Wow! I want to do that again!’ and so if we turn people into a quivering mass of nerves and they’re shaking in the fetal position after the bit then we’ve done a bad job. So exploiting real fears is something we won’t do.”
From talking to these guys, I really got the impression that it’s their goal to create a fun, thrilling experience with the mark. They work with the friends/family who are setting up the person to make sure things run smoothly and the actors and producers are all trained to know how to react when things don’t totally go as planned (which probably happens quite a bit). Anyway, this email address is listed on the Scare Tactics website if you want to suggest someone for the show.
Scare Tactics airs on Tuesday nights at 10:00 PM EST on Sci Fi. Here’s a clip from tonight’s episode:
