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SERIES 7 Send This Review to a Friend
Although apparently purporting to satirize reality television by carrying it to an extreme, "Series 7" joins the pack by inviting an audience to revel in the grotesque even while laughing at it. Writer-director Daniel Minahan seems to want it all ways and works up the sort of suspense for his own film that reality television, using his warped program plan, would also aim at building.
The gimmick for this fanciful show is that contenders have to kill their opponents. Last one alive wins freedom from the show itself. Minahan has tried to inject some humanity into the need to murder by giving us some personal stories that either run counter to the killer instinct or demonstrate how people can be swept up in the craziness. But as one watches "Series 7," the latest kill-off in the hot series "The Contenders," the idea for the show doesn't seem that far fetched in view of the present survival mania.
Contestants don't apply but are chosen at random. The main focus is on Dawn, who is nearing the end of her pregnancy, is the reigning champ with 20 kills to her credit and has one more series to go in order to be free. Brooke Smith plays her ferociously, with a smart killer instinct, except that she still has a soft spot for another contender, Jeff, once a high school boy friend who is dying of testicular cancer (Glenn Fitzgerald). Meritt Wever plays Lindsay, an 18-year-old whose gung-ho parents are arming her and cheering her on to hoped-for victory. That relationship is the most satirical of the lot. Funniest in its macabre way is the character of Connie, a very religious nurse who is a thoroughly cold-blooded killer, whom Marylouise Burke portrays with relentless determination and deviousness. Richard Venture plays an older contender, also ruthless but with his own ideas about what’s going on in the show.
Such is the murderous reality set-up meant to thrill audiences, and as expected, it works toward its climax with maudlin melodrama. But "Series 7" isn't funny enough. Instead, we, the audience, are asked to get worked up about what's happening in the show itself and root for a winner. You can't have your murder and enjoy it too if you want to keep the approach satirical. A USA Films release.
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