Scare Tactics: "Fear Is Funny" Review

July 10, 2008 by Alexandra

Sci-fi’s Scare Tactics premiered last night in two episodes, and I have to say, the laughs were there. “Fear is Funny” has been the tagline of the show in all the TV promos.

From the Satan’s Baby segment to the Brain experiment segment, things were actually pretty interesting. I recommend the show for laughs. Read more of this review as we look at it all, from the effects, to the tricks, to the actors themselves.

Tracy Morgan As Host

OK, Morgan is a pretty funny guy, but I have to admit I’ve seen him much funnier. However, his dialogue was apropos to the scare segments, and the creators of the show even found a way to change things up a bit with a phone simulation of Tracy calling one of the “victims”. I guess someone figured out that seeing Morgan just sitting in a chair talking would be pretty boring.

Special Effects

The special effects were very realistic….maybe even more so than previous seasons. For example, in one segment, the back of a guys head appeared to have exploded. Of course, I’ve never seen anything like this, but the simulation was dead on (no pun intended).

The Tricks

Some of the tricks were pretty elaborate. There was one segment that I’ll just call “firestarter”. A kid in a mental hospital is off his meds, and appears to cause spontaneous combustion, and later a car blows up with a person inside. There seems to be more dialogue and characters in on the tricks this season, and those two things alone make the scenarios even more believable for the unsuspecting victims.

The Actors

This season of Scare Tactics seems to have actors that really enjoy the scares that they perpetrate. It seemed they were having fun, and it showed by the way they were allowed to immediately get out of character, and laugh along with the victims after they knew they were being punked….I mean scared! It could be that in previous seasons, there was no focus on this. In some ways, it makes the segments a lot more entertaining.