Scare Tactics: Season 3, Part 1 Uncensored and Too Hot for TV – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

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It’s easy to get your jollies when you get a wild hair to hide behind a door or in a dark room and wait for your friend or family member to walk in so you can scare them unexpectedly. Sometimes it’s quite amusing to sneak up on someone sleeping or totally unknowing and scream at them so they can yell at the top of their lungs. Little pranks like that have been around for decades and will surely last for many more, if not all of eternity. Things get a little scary though when those pranks are taken to a while new level and people with too much time on their hands put a lot more effort into the pranks and make them purely frightening.

You have probably seen one of the many prank shows that have aired on television throughout time. Whether it be Candid Camera, The Jaime Kennedy Experiment, or Punk’d, they’ve all had the same premise and that’s to pull pranks on unsuspecting celebrities or ordinary people. Tracy Morgan has now come along and is hosting a show that does the exact same thing but is out to scare the living hell out of people instead of just tricking them. Scare Tactics puts people in situations like getting a new job, having them alone on a train, or taking a freakish cab ride. Those are just a few of the scenarios that have been laid out for actors to work alongside family members and friends so that unsuspecting people can have their hearts skip a few beats.

The series itself is really hit or miss as some episodes are extremely outlandish and over the top making me not look forward to the outcome of the prank but simply hoping it is done soon. Perhaps the creators of the show are able to determine which guests will be a bit more gullible then others and can throw them into the most nonsensical episodes so that more laughs can be generated by how stupid they are. If you ask me, that actually cheapens the show a bit and works against it. I’m no genius but I am rather intelligent and just can’t be entertained when something looks overly staged to me and we’re made to believe that everything is coincidental. Are some people that stupid? Sure they are, but at least make it seem more believable that you’re legitimately trying to scare them and not just expose their ignorance.

Scare Tactics does a lot right though and when the episodes are good, they’re really good. A lot of the situations come from people wanting to get back or plot a little revenge at others they know, but without really doing harm to them. All I’ve got to say is that some of the scenarios these victims are thrown into can be downright frightening making you not only scream…but ask for a new pair of pants. You’ll sit there and laugh as they are being driven absolutely batty, but don’t think your mind won’t be asking you just what you’d do if you changed places with them. Tracy Morgan does an excellent job of hosting the show too and giving his thoughts after each scare. Sometimes all we need is a good laugh or two after wondering what we’d do if a corpse was revealed to be inside the walls of our home.

The DVD release of Scare Tactics takes the insanity a step further though by giving the fans a little bit more then what they get when the episodes air on television. Instead of pixilation and the bleeps, every episode is totally uncensored and you’ll see things they wouldn’t dare show you on the air. Trust me this is not necessarily a series for kids once the censors take their fingers off the button and let it all come through.

Episodes

Disc One:

Satan’s Baby
3:10 to Hell
Deadly Genie in a Beer Bottle
Psycho in a Box
When White Noise Attacks
The Screaming Room
Frankenstein’s Basement of Terror

Disc Two:

Taxi Cab Carnage
Home Video Horror
When the Larvae Breaks
Big Scoop of Scary
Blood Bath
Satan’s Baby Returns!

The episodes are shown in 1.33:1 Full Screen format and they look rather good with a nice transition to DVD.

The episodes are heard in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Sound and it is just fine. Everything can be heard clearly, but I think surround sound would have been nice to make the atmosphere a little spookier.

Tracy Morgan’s Frighteningly Funny Bloopers And Outtakes – A lot of bloopers and improvisational stuff from Morgan during his hosting segments. Plenty of cursing to go around too, but these are some funny bits. (3:23)

Flesh Flash! Never-Before-Seen Extra Footage On 4 Episodes – “Deadly Genie in a Beer Bottle,” “The Screaming Room,” “Frankenstein’s Basement of Terror,” and “Blood Bath” are the four episodes that have a little extra footage to “show off” for your viewing pleasure. Not really sure what was or wasn’t shown when the episodes originally aired.

While the series itself is pretty good, this isn’t a great DVD set to own. Most of the episodes are enjoyable, but they don’t have a lot of replayability simply because you already know the prank and reaction so what else is there to see? The special features aren’t bad, yet there isn’t much to them. I would love to see more bloopers in the next release because Morgan just being himself is incredibly hilarious. Scare Tactics is a good show that will probably get even better as each season rolls on, but it’s hard to recommend spending money on the set when all you need to do is check out each episode once and that can happen for free. Your call though so just give it some thought. Hell, you may even get some ideas on how to torture and humiliate your closest loved ones.


Warner Home Video presents Scare Tactics: Season 3, Part 1 Uncensored and Too Hot for TV. Created by: Scott W. Hallock & Kevin S. Healey. Starring: Tracy Morgan, Various. Running time: 284 minutes on 2 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released on DVD: October 6, 2009. Available at Amazon.com