This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

If, like me, you're sick of the wealth of reality TV programming that has swamped television stations as of late - I'm talking about stuff like Big Brother and Survivor - then SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS acts as a pleasing satire of the shows, emphasising the ridiculous nature of over-the-top voice-over commentary, the exploitation of the weaknesses of the people involved and turning real people's lives into a slick, sick documentary. The film drags you into the lives of the six people and viewing does indeed become as gripping as the producers had intended. Be warned, though, that this production is not for all tastes and indeed it often does tread the line of good taste. The violence is hard and brutal (especially during a supermarket massacre) without being unnecessarily gory and adds to the strong realism of the production - imagine a drama in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT mould and you'll be halfway there.The strength of the film lies in the excellent acting involved from the entire cast, characters who really do embrace the roles they have and get under the skin to really understand them. Of particular interest are Brooke Smith, who's scarily believable as the heavily pregnant gun-toting Dawn, a veteran of the game show who doesn't think twice about shooting a fellow participant dead in cold blood; then there's Marylouise Burke who happens to be very frightening as the friendly-nurse-turned-angel-of-death. Glenn Fitzgerald also excels as the man dying of testicular cancer who has a complete character transformation as the film progresses. None of the actors are recognisable but a brief look at their resumes reveal that most are veterans in film. This is undoubtedly their finest hours to date and all come away with honours in my opinion.Elsewhere the film achieves a high standard of technical competence, and resembles the shows which it seeks to emulate very much so indeed. Razor-sharp editing and the smarmy, eager narration adds to the experience and of course the realism. Although the pacing of the second half is a little slow - my only complaint about the movie - things pick up for an ending which packs more twists in than most and finishes with an epilogue you won't see coming. Renters looking for a movie out of the mainstream and with a nice original concept for a change may find their curiosity rewarded with this amusing but often disturbing satire.

Series 7: The Contenders, is a very twisted black comedy about six contestants on a reality show. The premise of the reality show is that the contestants are given weapons and have to murder each other in order to win. The contestants include a mentally insane man living in a trailer park, a cancer patient, a religious nurse, a high school teenager, a middle-aged father, and (the reigning champion) a pregnant woman. The film is structured as a marathon showing and is played as a series of episodes strung together each following these contestants. The film depicts these people as normal and everyday people who are forced into this terrible situation against their will, but the real meat of the film comes in when we get to learn about the histories of some of these characters. That's the point of the film where the film grows out of being a spoof of reality shows and begins to manifest into a social commentary. The high school teenager has parents who encourage her every step of the way and help her suit up for the murders that she is about to commit. The pregnant woman has been disowned by her own mother due to past incidents. The middle-aged parent has his own troubles at home. There's a lot more going on here than at first glance. This is an angry and dark satire that really challenges some of the concepts of reality and the satire of itself.There's a lot here that I truly admire. For starters, the performances. They are pretty awful in a way that, at times, seems cringe-worthy. However, when you take a look at reality television shows such as Survivor and The Real World, the acting in those is even worse. It's supposed to be reality, yet the people in them are not believable. That's what makes reality television such a joke, and so in a roundabout way of saying things the performances here are good because the actors are good at capturing the melodramatic mannerisms of the contestants at large. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Brooke Smith as the pregnant woman. She is ridiculously cold and cruel and monstrous, and you can really feel the bitterness that she feels. Yet her mannerisms are so sarcastic and almost pathetic. The same goes for the rest of the cast, but Smith has a visual presence to her that I've always admired. She's a terrific actress. Nobody can forget her performance as the kidnapped victim in The Silence of the Lambs. I've seen some of her television work as well and she almost always sticks out in a good way. Merritt Wever and Glenn Fitzgerald do an equally good job as the teenage girl and the cancer patient, the former being the most likable person in the cast and the latter having all of the best lines and being the most interesting of all the characters.My favorite thing about this film, however, has to be the momentum of it. Series 7: The Contenders is almost never boring and there's always something going on. It's virtually impossible to stop watching once you've started, even if you pick up in the middle of it. I think this was done intentionally. I think a lot of televisions shows have that same kind of watchability factor, and what I appreciated the most about this film is that there were no commercials that cut into the action. The satire of the film itself is simple and clever, but even if you put all that aside, you still have one hell of a captivating film. Putting the climax of the film aside, you do get to care about almost all these characters and you don't particularly want to see any of them die really.If you want my personal opinion on the film, I cannot say that I like it too much. I don't personally find the film itself to be very funny. I like dark humor, but I thought that this was too sick, really, to be funny. I also really don't like the ending. It felt like I was being beaten over the head by the satire. I also find that the film itself isn't exactly re-watchable. Once you know how it all ends, you really don't have any desire to ever really sit down and watch it. There are films out there that are sick and that you never really WANT to watch again, but at the same time you feel you should and can't help but feel the need to sit through it, but Series 7: The Contenders plays all of it's cards in one sitting and as a result you really don't feel any desire to absorb any of it. It's more the type of film that you just appreciate rather than like and enjoy. I can imagine a lot of horror fan and readers of Fangoria would love it to pieces or at least get a huge kick out of watching it. In my opinion, as brilliant and as clever as it is, I definitely wouldn't advise mainstream moviegoers to watch this. I thought it was a brilliantly directed film in a lot of ways, and the satire was effective, but I can't exactly recommend it. I'm glad I saw it though.

I don't know about you but I'm pretty much 'realitied' out. If I see another behind the scenes, fly on the wall or real people confined to a televisual prison program I think I might well have to tear up my TV licence... and with Big Brother 7 (I think) on its way here in England that might well happen (although, now that I think of it, BB 7 might well end up sharing some unintentional similarities with Series 7 of the Contenders... more on this shortly).To tell the truth, I have never liked any reality TV shows. Instead of showing you something positive they seem to rejoice in the negative and encourage only the worst sort of backstabbing, vindictive and childish behaviour we should be discouraging, rather than rewarding. Unfortunately the trend doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon and this is a very worrying possibility.In recent years there has been a counteract against the reality TV boon, best personified cinematically in Battle Royale (which is close if not quite a reality TV satire) and, bang on the money, Series 7: the Contenders (henceforth Series 7). There are other voices of sanity out there, particularly in books (see Ben Elton's Dead Famous for a brilliant example), which seek to satirise reality television, but only the medium itself can really show us where the end will finally happen, television and real life of course...Series 7 represents a logical step in reality TV. With audiences losing interest in physical and psychological hardship of volunteers, an alternative will have to be found. Therefore why not have a lottery based killing game where five people, along with a sixth champion of the previous game, must compete to slay each other within the limits of a small town in American. As I'm sure you can guess, this barbaric program has yet to be made but it is highly likely that television executives have thought long and hard about the possibilities... it wouldn't take a genius to think of the boost in ratings that, for example, Death Row inmates given a chance to win their freedom if they kill five of their fellow cons in some sort of last man standing style battle royal. Those men would all be scheduled to die anyway, so why not make it for entertainment rather than just justice...? Such a possibility, very fortunately, hasn't yet come to fruition, nor am I aware of any attempts to do so, but one only has to imagine such a show to see that it would be very possible to make it and, moral concerns aside, it really would sweep all before it for audience popularity.Series 7 represents such a program to the nth degree and, very accurately, portrays the emotions a disparate group of the lottery 'winners' might feel upon being selected. I won't dwell on the film itself, simply because I don't want to spoil the humour and utterly spellbinding violence it creates, particularly the juxtaposition of both aspects... you find yourself giggling at an 8 month pregnant woman's attempts to psych out a 50 year old nurse, only to feel the laughter die in your throat as the same woman garrotes, drowns and shoots three people, amongst others, seconds later...The closeness of Series 7 to the formats of other 'reality' shows is striking, from the hideous melodrama, 'I'm going to win' speeches and sad, pathetic individuals more needing sympathy and a bit of cash than the fame they crave. When this is held up alongside the same people brutally killing each other it makes for a very real and chilling portrayal of reality television, particularly in America though by no means limited to that country. These people don't have to fight. They don't have to kill each other. THey certainly don't have to put up with being videoed, attached to GPS monitors and hooked up to microphones 24/7. If it was me I'd blow the cameraman away and go from there... but these people obey the rules of the game, even though the show purports to have no rules, and hence are hostages in a very real sense.This is best demonstrated by the subtle allusions to the fact that the game may well be fixed. By a staggeringly remote chance, Dawn (the pregnant woman) ends up face to face with a former school friend... one of the competitors claims the show is faked... one man suffers a 'self inflicted stab wound to the back' while fleeing... and footage of various situations disappears and must be 're-enacted' by actors. These are just some of the issues mentioned but, as we are supposedly watching the TV show rather than a film about the show, the details aren't explored, which is a place the film falls down a little. Other problems are the TV gimmicks, like sudden 'what will happen next?' montages every 10 minutes or so. Sure, this would happen on TV, but in a film (I saw this at the cinema) it gets quite annoying. However, these quibbles are mostly minor. Anyone who is addicted to reality TV shows and people who genuinely despise them will find something here, although they might not like what they see. As for the Series 7 scenario...? Just how implausible do you think it is? I only ask because, in one of the series of Big Brother in Australia, one of the 'cast,' while making out with another member of the cast, asked her whether she was excited. When she gave her answer he then picked up a knife and held it to her throat.'How about now?' he wondered. This man was subsequently taken out of the BB house but the question remains... how far will TV executives go with reality TV? Series 7: the Contenders shows us the depths to which it could stoop eerily accurately.

the people who came up with this are SICK AND TWISTED FREAKS how the hell can you exploit people like this? tricking people into thinking that this is real? which i probably don't doubt that it is... i saw this thing for the very first time today series 7 and it made me sick to my stomach i almost threw up. i just couldn't stop crying my eyes out for these poor people and if that woman really did have that baby you SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!!!!!!!!!! i have a 4 month old daughter and it is just absolutely appalling that would put a "real" pregnant woman in SO MUCH FRICKEN DANGER! you people are bloody ANIMALS and should be locked up for life allowing something like this to put on t.v. if this so called "reallity show" is for real then why isn't anyone being put in prison for allowing people to die and not doing a god damn thing about it. YOU ALL DESERVE TO BE FRIGGEN HUNTED DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!