Reality television is already a scary prospect for many people. People competing for prizes in various demeaning ways, or just sitting in a house until they are the last one left, can be nausea-inducing for audiences. Some see reality television as the downfall of entertainment, while others tune in every week to cheer on their favorite regular Joe.
What happens when horror movies take the reality TV concept and incorporate it? Deadly games, scared camera crews, and sadistic killers are some things audiences can expect when reality television and horror movies collide. With that being said, here are five horror movies about reality TV that will have viewers cringing in fear.
Halloween Resurrection
Taking place after the events of Halloween: H2O, Laurie Strode is in a mental health facility when Michael Myers strikes again and, after a struggle, stabs her and throws her off the facility roof. These scenes mainly exist to tie Michael to new events which occur one year later. Students are taking part in an online reality show called Dangertainment, and the show is being filmed in Michael's abandoned childhood home.
Armed with head cams and a house full of static cameras, the students enter the house to spend the night, not knowing that Michael has returned home and has already begun to pick them off one by one. As far as the participants know, the show is all staged, with fake bodies strewn around the Strode house. However, it soon becomes apparent that Michael has once again returned home to Haddonfield.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
The second installment of the Wrong Turn series sees the murderous cannibal family return to terrorize a group of reality show contestants. Henry Rollins plays former U.S Marine Colonel Dale Murphy who is hosting The Apocalypse: Ultimate Survivalist, a show taking place in the woods of West Virginia pitting contestants' survival skills against each other. Unfortunately for the cast and crew, they are on the mutant cannibal family's land, and Ma and Pa aren't happy about it.
Things quickly turn from fake survival to an all-too-real nightmare struggle. Wrong Turn 2 is a fast and smart pastiche of the reality television phenomena and people's need for their fifteen minutes of fame. It also features Henry Rollins brandishing dynamite more than once, and some truly gruesome kill scenes.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
South Korean horror film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is based on a real psychiatric hospital, and features a team of traveling web-series creators that recruit some locals to participate in their investigation of the abandoned and supposedly haunted hospital. The group travels through the woods to the site, setting up base camp outside and filling the building with cameras. While the director stays behind at base camp to handle the internet live stream, the rest suit up with head-mounted cameras and head inside.
At first, the two other main team members stage supernatural occurrences to scare the others and rack up views. However, the group awakens the spirits that reside in the building, and those spirits don't want them to leave. The movie features creepy dolls, spiritual abductions, and a very scary and effective possession.
My Little Eye
My Little Eye is a spin on the premise of Big Brother. Five contestants agree to live in an isolated mansion for six months, their every move being filmed, with the hope that they will win $1 million at the end of the experiment. Starting out as a typical reality show, the movie shows the mundanity of the contestant's lives, until a man called Travis (played by Bradley Cooper) stumbles across the house claiming to be lost in the woods.
With the arrival of Travis, things begin to take a turn for the worse. Fights break out, one of the contestants seemingly commits suicide, and through the use of Travis' equipment that he leaves behind, the group realizes that the show they are involved in isn't actually what they signed up for.
Grave Encounters
The 2011 found-footage film Grave Encounters riffs on the paranormal investigation shows that began to explode in the mid-2000s. Heavily influenced by shows like Ghost Adventures, Grave Encounters sees a group of paranormal investigators shooting a new episode of their show at Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. The hospital has a long history of paranormal happenings and unethical patient experiments, and head ghost hunter Lance Preston is determined to catch something on film.
Much like Ghost Adventures, the team locks themselves down in the hospital — but unlike the Travel Channel's star series, paranormal things actually start happening. The hospital becomes a maze that they are unable to navigate. The exit to the building vanishes and members of the team are attacked and start seeing spectral apparitions. The team seems to be there for days, gradually losing their grip on reality and their sanity.