Monday, June 11, 2001
'Fear Factor' frightening concept
New reality show's stunts approach gross excess
Oh, rats! Is this Fox? No, but NBC's new Fear Factor could be confused with the gross reality programs on Fox. (Guinness World Records: Primetime comes to mind.)
Fear Factor premieres today (8 p.m., Channels 5, 22) with six people each trying to win $50,000 by performing daring stunts — like being lowered into an elevator shaft and covered by 400 rats. For four minutes.
The contestants wore sleeveless shirts, shorts and goggles — so the rodents could nibble on their toes, arms and ears.
This is how “reality TV” has regressed — from people eating rats on Survivor last summer to rats gnawing on people as prime-time entertainment.
“It's horrible,” says Randall Einhorn about the rats, not the TV trend. The Finneytown native directed filming of all stunts for the nine-week series. His crew used infrared cameras to shoot the rat scenes in an abandoned Los Angeles building.
“To me, the ickiest things of all are rats. Especially in the pitch black, when you can't see anything.”
On this we agree.
But Mr. Einhorn, 37, an Australian-based cinematographer who filmed both Survivor shows, predicts that American viewers will eat up Fear Factor from Dutch-based Endemol Entertainment (Big Brother).
Rats, he says, are only a small part of the show. Many Fear Factor stunts, performed with the assistance of trained Hollywood stunt professionals, are things people have seen in movies.
Radical stunts
In the debut, contestants are pulled 100 yards through a muddy Old West street by two horses. For the final challenge, three finalists crawl out of a car, suspended 150 feet above a canyon, trying to retrieve the keys from the rear trunk.
“I think people will enjoy seeing these radical stunts being done by everyday people. They love watching this stuff in movies. I think it will do well,” says Mr. Einhorn, a 1982 Finneytown High School graduate.
Future Fear Factor episodes show people jumping from the top of a speeding tractor-trailer onto another tractor-trailer in the next lane. They walk a narrow beam between skyscrapers. They escape from a car submerged in water. They're covered by snakes.
“I could handle the snake pit,” Mr. Einhorn says. “I'll pick up a snake. But the rats — that was the one stunt I couldn't have done. That was grisly.”
Throughout the show, host Joe Rogan (NewsRadio) interviews participants about facing their fears. Anyone who fails to do a task, or chickens out, is immediately eliminated from the game.
“I think it will do well,” says Mr. Einhorn, who made a similar prediction for Survivor a year ago. (He heads to Kenya next month to shoot Survivor 3 for Mark Burnett.He also shot Mr. Burnett's Combat Mission, hosted by ex-Survivor Rudy Boesch, which will air on USA cable later this year.
Expects resistance
Jeff Zucker, NBC Entertainment president, says he expects some “advertiser resistance” to the summer series. But overall, he's proud to broadcast a show with rats dining on humans.
“I think some of (the show) is quite amusing and quite entertaining,” he says.
How long Fear Factor will last depends on the American public. If we want to watch people covered with snakes and rats, or slamming face-first into the side of a speeding tractor-trailer, then we'll see more reality shows.
If people refuse to watch this stuff, as they rejected UPN's Chains of Love, then networks will return to their regularly scheduled scripted programs.
Promotions for Fear Factor pose this question: What do you fear?
For me, it's that these cheap, sensational reality shows will take over television, and chew up time slots filled for years by sitcoms and dramas. Rats!
E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/kiese
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