Three words: Blair Witch Project. Sci-Fi Channel did a "documentary" for that too. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the commercial for this. I think you're overreacting just a tad.

I don't think so. If Sci Fi wants to capitalize on the upcoming release of "The Village", they would have done better to just do a "making of" show.

Vic

Sci-fi channel is a "science fiction" channel that has "The Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek" on at 2:00 in the morning. 'Nuff said.

So what's the beef? I just watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre the other day. Tagged as "Inspired by a true story", it is the stuff of urban legend. There never was a "Leatherface", nothing like this ever happened in Texas and the "true story" had nothing to do with chainsaws.

This is advertising hype, plain and simple.

I personally wrote off the SciFi channel
when they canceled "MST 3000" the only &
best thing they had going for them.

What bugs me about it is that it's the equivalent advertising the program where Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's "secret vault", knowing in advance that there was nothing in it.

There's hype and then there's outright lying. Because it's on a large, corporate scale that makes it ok to mislead people?

Vic

I'd comment, but I'm taking off for a vacation in Grover's Mills, NJ.

we knew the minute someone opened their yap in the show. The acting was worse than anyhthing I have seen. I mean they are taping the meetings with their boss? come on.They really thought we would not catch on. Adrian Brdy almost broke down laughing when he had to sue the quote (he supposedly had to use).Oh we have the camera off.Sure thing. You can hera when they are on. What a mess.

You refer to him as Night. I tried to watch anyway. It was awful. Would have been awful even if it were true.

This beautiful peice of (comedic)fiction had me cracking up from the time I saw the previews. I thought this was the most entertaning thing I've seen since Signs. Right from the start you could tell this was the directorial work of master hoax-man Shyamalan. Just compare to his movies. Slow and over dramatic. My favourite part came when Kahn tells that "high school friend" that Night had died in the pond. At first I couldn't tell what she was doing. It wasn't a natural reaction nor was it Acting it was really really bad acting. But all in all I have to say the picture of "Henry" whether really drawn by the distubed young Night or not frreaked me out. I wish they had just gotten the interview with Phoenix, though. Well they'll be other publicity interviews in the next few weeks I'm sure. Well if this ever makes it to Night himself, I enjoyed the experience, keep up the good work and next time set Joaquin Phoenix out for the interveiws.

as someone brought up on the Harry Knowles Digset aka aintitcool.com, no one complained when they found out the blair witch was a hoax, and it had a whole hour-long doc on sci-fi too, yacking about the "mythology" and what not. It was very entertaining.
From what The Duke hears with regards the "rumours" and "spoilers", it would appear Night has more to worry about regarding his latest "twist" ending. Lotta folks are getting awful uppity with regards the proposed finale to Village.
By the way Screen, this digest of movie news on here was something that was lacking for a time. Good stuff, man, you do a great job.

re: coment 6
"there was nothing in Al Capones vault,
But that wasn't geraldo's fault"

Ah, god bless homer simpson

This is neither here nor there, but did Geraldo really know there was nothing in it ahead of time? I thought that debacle sidetracked his career for some time.

If Geraldo knew in advance what was in that stupid Capone vault (yes, I too watched that damn show), then that would mean he had to have looked into that damn vault. If he looked into that damn vault, it would mean he had access. If he's a liar, why not get a few old machine guns, a skull or two, maybe even a weathered suitcase of cash? I mean, if he knew in advance there was only going to be a beer bottle and a rusty nickle, do you really think he would have been happy with that? Hell fucking no he wouldn't have been. He didn't look into those now-infamous vaults beforehand, because if he did, he would not have allowed himself to look like a complete idiot.......

As for M. Night Shamalacki, he's made one great film, one fair film and two horrible films. The Village looks cool, but with Shamalcki it's all just a tease and a crapshoot. I think I'll take a vacation to Jerusalem's Lot......

Duke, thanks very much. I had actually been wondering if my movie news stuff was inappropriate for the site and had been debating doing less of it.

Vic

As for the Sci-Fi Channel, it's difficult for me to understand how anyone could take ANYTHING even remotely serious on that wasteland of a channel. Now let's say, well, ahh, 60 Minutes was doing a segment on M. Light Shamaloco, and later it turned out to be false. I'd be mighty pissed, yes I would, because that is a reputable program. Now the Sci-Fi Channel does something and it turns out to be a steaming pile of horse shit, well, I'd say any channel that shows Time Tunnel re-runs is not going to have the best investigative documentarians in TV history.

Now Chris, don't forget this is the same channel that puts out the EXCELLENT Stargate SG-1.

Vic

I'm sorry, but TV went straight to hell the day they cancelled Night Stalker......

Wow, that was a long time ago. You CAN hold a grudge, can't you? ;-)

Vic

Actually, I am quite gregarious and am smart enough to know that any channel who's only claim to fame is Stargate is probably not going to produce Ken Burns-level documentaries.......Lighten up Scooby....

Clark,

You *did* see the smiley icon in my post, didn't you?

Vic

heh "clark"

oops. :-)

Sorry.

Of course I did. I am the King of smiley-face icons......;)

I just think Shamalooki is a bit overrated.....

Stately Wayne Manor said:

I personally wrote off the SciFi channel when they canceled "MST 3000"

I say:

Hell yeah. We need to bring back MST3K.

Besides my beloved X-Files, SF on TV has sucked ever since they stopped making shows like Outer Limits (the original, not the preachy "science bad, people good" remake), Night Gallery, The Night Stalker (as mentioned above), and The Invaders (with architect David Vincent), with the possible exception of some decent Star Trek episodes. I agree that MST3K was excellent, and that re-runs of that would beat any of the other crap they play on the SciFi network.

I'm sorry, but in my mind, this crosses the line over to false advertising.

I knew that it was all for fun. The thing fits too neatly into his whole mystique.

David

I thought it was real at first, then I thought 'you might have got me with Sixth Sense, but not with this one'. If they wanted it believeable, they should have used better actors.

Just goes to prove- you shouldn't believe everthing you see on TV. (esp on the Sci fi channel)

Eh, must have caught me on a bad day... still, there's money involved here and that annoys me. If this was some hoax perpetrated on some fanboy website, then whatever.

Ah well, I stood by my principles and didn't watch it. :-)

Vic