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So a send-up has to be just around the comedy corner. And here it is.
Daniel Minahan's Series 7: The Contender is a movie about a program where contestants, chosen at random, must kill before they are killed, like hitman tag, but when you're it you're out forever.
It brings a whole new meaning to survivor. But don't expect spoofing and goofing with this semi-serious simulation, shot as a documentary of the most dangerous game show.
This rugged take on the fad is darkly caustic. It's designed to make as much fun of reality TV fans as reality TV, a sneaky amalgamation of a put-on and put-down.
The star is Dawn (Brooke Smith), a hardened in-your-face armed-and-dangerous veteran who also happens to be near-term pregnant.
In this episode, she's going up against a spoiled teenager, a coke-snorting unemployed father, a deadly nurse, an isolated senior citizen grump and Dawn's former death-wish boyfriend, who is more blatant than latent about his sexual preference.
Background profiles and at-home interviews set up the play-by-play that follows.
Included are some comedy danger zones sequences depicting a child hostage-taking, a failed suicide and a hospital bedside attempted murder.
On the mainstream front, there is a parents shoot-to-kill pep talk and a mocking video of the early '80s goth-pop days using Joy Division's gothic anthem Love Will Tear Us Apart as the centrepiece.
Surprisingly, the actors never give anything away. They play it straight. Smith, as the deadly Dawn, holds the feature-length gag together without giving away the joke.
Which seems to be writer-director Minahan's motto for Series 7.
Certainly, his past as a segment producer for tabloid TV programs serves him well on the realism front. So does his willingness to push it to the limit almost every time.
Catch this, and you'll think of two things: How farfetched is this really? And funny is as funny does.
(This film is rated AA)