Let’s do this,” he says in another episode, with all the same passion I would employ in saying, All right, Netflix. (“How are we doing at the other location,” he says in episode two, leaning back in his chair like people do in control rooms. Matarazzo’s acting doesn’t serve him well here, whether in voice over or asides. He’s in charge of letting everyone know they’re on a prank show no one has heard of, though he also says “Netflix” and presumably people have heard of that.īefore that moment, though, he spends the episodes sitting in an alleged RV/control truck that has more choreographed blinking lights than the Starship Enterprise. Gaten Matarazzo’s on-camera involvement is, well, odd. Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo is doing some strange things Stranger Things star and Prank Encounters host Gaten Matarazzo allegedly giving actors direction from an alleged control room. Charming!Įventually the bear comes to life and pushes an actor off the balcony, after the actor spends a suspicious amount of time leaning over the railing. The kid, who’s an actor, insists her sister died because a teddy bear pushed her off the balcony.
Meanwhile, a second mark is hired to help collect toys for a charity. The first prank, which I have to assume is what Netflix thinks is the best episode to keep people watching, is both convoluted and boring.Ī mark is hired by a woman to babysit. What it ended up being, though, is a bad idea ineptly produced. The show got a lot of pushback when it was announced because Netflix initially described it as a show where “two complete strangers who each think they’re starting their first day at a new job” were pranked and their “part-time jobs turn into full-time nightmares.” This mess was produced for Netflix by Propagate, which previously embarrassed themselves producing a reality show for a giant tech company with a knock-off of another show, Shark Tank (theirs was called Planet of the Apps). That’s blood-curdling: watching your life disappear in 25-minute increments of a show from Netflix, a company that once was trying to produce better versions of popular unscripted shows. Scare Tactics usually did four scares in about 21 minutes Prank Encounters episodes last for between 20 and 25 minutes, and have just one scare that entire time. What crept up on me in each episode was boredom, and once I even heard unconsciousness scratching at my door, which was probably my brain trying to rescue me. I sure didn’t, and I only watched half of the eight episodes. Prank Encounters producer Kevin Healey told EW’s Lynette Rice suggests that something similar might have happened here, saying that “we go through a process for them to do a one-day gig.” He’s not more specific than that, and his vagary isn’t challenged (#journalism), nor is his claim that everyone “left super happy.” They still didn’t know they were on a show, of course, but they also weren’t just random people seeking a part-time job who then got tricked into becoming entertainment. That’s why I was surprised to learn, from Scare Tactics creator Scott Hallock, that on his show, all of the marks had previously applied to be on reality shows before they were filmed, and thus they were actually cast as a result of their application. Maybe the actual prank is on us?įirst, a disclaimer: I’m not the biggest fan of scary or cruel prank shows, in part because their stars have not consented, in advance, to being subjected to emotional distress.
The marks may have been momentarily freaked out during the climax of the scares, but the only frightening thing about Prank Encounters is that it exists. I will admit that, when a teddy bear came to life and ran across a balcony in the first episode of Prank Encounters, I laughed: it was quite the image.īut Netflix’s attempt to create its own Scare Tactics is mostly embarrassing, for Netflix and everyone involved in creating such a dull, unconvincing mess.
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