Series 7

The Contenders is a TV reality game show in which six contestants, given a gun and a camera, are challenged to assassinate the other five and win the game. In “Series 7” an eight-month pregnant Dawn is the reigning champion, who, by winning, will free herself from further participation. This series is played in Dawn’s hometown and one of the contestants is a former boyfriend and one true love, Jeff, dying of cancer. The film explores the morality of reality TV, satirising the public’s obsession with seeing ordinary people suffer, interact, live - and in this case - die. Voice-over narration comments on the action as if it were a football game; the network plays re-enactments of footage that’s been lost; the audience participates by revelling in their live participation of the murders. There is a sickeningly insipid presentation of graphic violence, as contestants blithely bait, maim and shoot each other. This blandness is compounded by the pedestrian cinematography that makes this film uninteresting to view for its aesthetics but compelling for its politics. Cast includes Brooke Smith, Marylouise Burke, Glenn Fitzgerald, Michael Kaycheck, Richard Venture, Merritt Weaver. Some scenes may disturb.