By late 2000, reality television was considered must-see entertainment by millions. Whether it was the drama and backstabbing tribal exploits of Survivor or Regis Philbin asking for the “final answer” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, this boob tube subgenre was all the rage worldwide. Meanwhile, Japan has always been known for their off the wall, physically demanding gameshows like Takeshi’s Castle and Kunoichi.
Writer-director Maurice Devereaux (End of the Line) rode the wave of reality TV in an ocean of Japanese game show craziness on a surfboard crafted from The Running Man to bring the world $la$hers in 2001. And thanks to Terror Vision, who have been on a roll with their releases lately, we have a chance to revisit this Canadian direct-to-video flick. Despite how the title sounds, it is not supposed to be a straight-on horror film, but a satire in a horror film’s clothing, so to speak. A film that literally winks at the camera during the rise of the “network ratings are king” reality television craze of the time.
$la$her$ is a top game show in Japan, but it isn’t your typical family friendly affair. Instead of worrying about landing on the Whammy or spinning the wheel to the Bankrupt card, the way to win this game is to stay alive by avoiding vicious killers determined to eliminate the competition in the literal sense. And this show includes all kinds of other added entertainment value such as cheerleaders and a house DJ, appropriately named DJ Slash (Shigera Fugita).
Here’s how the film plays out: we are the viewers watching the latest $la$her$ episode, through the lens of the show’s cameraman Hideo, which is a special “All-American” episode dedicated to the USA. This point is driven home by the fact that the game show host Miho Taguchi (Claudine Shiraishi) is cosplaying as the Statue of Liberty. It doesn’t get more Americana than that, folks. All she needed was a hot dog, a PBR and some scratch off lottery tickets.
All 6 contestants are also introduced as hailing from the States too, but you’ll be able to tell in a matter of minutes that these actors are actually from the Great White North, thanks to their discernible accents. Remember, this is a Canadian feature. Our Can-Am contestants comprise of protestor/law student Megan Lowry (Sarah Joslyn Crowder), bad ass ex-boxer Devon White (Tony Curtis Blondell), an oddball who looks like the lovechild of Bill Hader and Garret Dillahunt, Michael Gibbons (Kieran Keller), ex-nightclub doorman Rick Fisher (Jerry Sprio – out of all the actors, he’s not even trying to hide his accent), former strongwoman champion Rebecca Galley (Carolina Pia), and eye candy Brenda Thompson (Sofia de Medeiros).
The cameras follow the participants through various themed zones (one is designed after a gaudy motel love room for some reason) as they strive to survive against the show’s gimmicked psychos. Our lineup includes deranged Southern-based (un)holy man and first time slasher, Preacherman (Neil Napier); the crowd favorite backwoods redneck who looks like Carrot Top, Chainsaw Charlie (also played by Neil Napier, and not Terry Funk – deep cut); and the final boss reigning champion and physician who does not expect you to call him in the morning, Dr. Ripper (Christopher Piggins). Each wields a signature weapon, plus corny taunts and hokey one-liners.
We also learn that both the contestants and killers wear irremovable electric collars that provide a heckuva jolt for going rogue against the showrunners’ desires, such as everyone needing to remain completely frozen during commercial breaks. If not, it’s shock therapy time! And that rule makes for some pretty cool sequences that occur throughout this flick.
Even though this film is far from perfect, you gotta give the filmmakers credit for some creative ways they pull things off with their extremely low budget. One example is the plot device of having the show’s cameraman as an active character to help move the story along. This device allows the characters to deliver tongue-firmly-in-cheek exposition directly into the camera to provide their backstories. Because contestant personalization for viewers is critical to the showrunners’ desires and helps keep those contestants alive longer; the boring and uninteresting ones are offed immediately. And our characters know nuances like this because some of them reveal that they are fans of the show and know how to play the game the right way. Revealing that knowledge to us also comes in handy as a reason to provide some softcore T’n’A a mere 17 minutes in, due to the characters knowing that women de-robing down to bras are a hit! Well played, filmmakers. Remember this is from right after Y2K and a much different time.
Another cool thing the filmmakers do well is by making most of the film seem like a string of long continuous shots, as if it is an actual live TV show, by making edits during set light flickers and manipulations of camera angles. They aren’t all perfect, but a majority of them are executed flawlessly. And it is worth mentioning that there are actually a few cool gore effects (there’s some awful ones too), which is a surprise due to the budgetary constrictions.
Now there’s not a lot of bad things going on in this film, but those little bits of bad really have an impact on the final product. This is a low budget affair, so you’d expect the acting to range anywhere between not good to horrible. But the thespianism on display here is at an Olympic-tier level of atrociousness, along with some of the worst fake “cry-speaking” ever, and the dialogue quality does not help in the least. Pretty lethal combo.
However, the true sin of $la$her$ is that the story does not fully live up to its potential, which it was completely loaded with. Maybe the running time should have been cut down so that a lot of the filler scenes didn’t need to be forced in. By the way, this review is based on the 99-minute version—there’s a longer cut with even more unneeded filler!
To enjoy this film, you must appreciate its flaws (I do!) and allow yourself to just process all the craziness and cheesiness that it offers. Even the low caliber acting can become tolerable if you just laugh and accept it for what it is. It’s an extremely polarizing film, as evidenced by its 5.0/10 IMDB review. You are going to either embrace it or reject it with no middle ground.
Disc talk time. Is this release worth the cash? If you’re already a fan or are ready to blind buy based on what you just read, then most definitely! And if you own the old MTI Home Video DVD, chuck it and grab this Blu-ray immediately. Terror Vision absolutely killed it and provides hope that this quality is going to be their norm moving forward. This movie looks so clear that if you didn’t know any better, and ignored the late 90s-styled thin eyebrows sported by the actresses, you’d think it was shot only last year. The picture honestly looks THAT clear.
Besides the two bad ass special slipcovers you can choose from, Terror Vision went the extra mile with the special features for such an obscure film. They added new and archival interviews, both versions of the film, the $la$her$ in-film commercials and deleted scenes, just to name a few of the additional goodies.
You can pick up a copy of $la$her$ right now at terror-vision.com.
