Reality TV gone wild.

Shooting the Warwicks is a film that after watching I’m really surprised didn’t get more traction when it released ten years ago. Maybe it’s because the content hits a little too close to home for the TV industry. Maybe it’s because the film is depressing as shit. Maybe it’s the graphic imagery of a dog (a fake dog) getting run over by a car that turns people off.

Directed by Adam Rifkin, produced by Adam Rifkin, written by Adam Rifkin, and starring Adam Rifkin, Shooting the Warwicks is a movie that lampoons reality TV. I went in expecting it to be a retread of The Truman Show but in reality it’s a black comedy that mocks the idea of a Truman Show being filmed in the real world rather than a giant soundstage pretending to be the real world. Also it’s really goddamn depressing.

The film stars Adam Rifkin as Mickey Wagner, a sleazy reality TV producer who pitches a show so real it’s basically reality. The idea is to pick a family at random and video tape their lives for a new reality show. The big difference is that the family doesn’t know they’re on a show. Who do they pick? The Warwicks, which you’d know if you read the title of the film that I mentioned a few times.

Dennis (Scott Anderson), Katherine (Kelley Menighan), and their daughter Amy (Monika Tilling) are as exciting as the jar of lowfat mayonnaise that their complexion resembles, and after giving them a fake vacation the crew sneaks into their house and puts cameras everywhere. The problem with this is idea is that reality TV is not real, with people behind the scenes pushing buttons and pulling levers to affect reality and push things in a direction that makes for good TV.

And the Warwicks are boring as hell. Dennis and Katherine don’t have sex, their daughter is a virgin who doesn’t drink or smoke, and their dog who is just a dog. So Wagner and crew decide to spice things up by subtly messing with their lives by doing things like making the dog go missing and leaving the back door open. Cause drama in the family and get their real reactions because they don’t know that it’s all being filmed. Shoot the 18 year old daughter in the shower.

The movie is a slow boil of the show messing with the family even more and more, getting the dad fired from his job, trying to get the parents to cheat on each other, etc. The movie gets more and more deranged as it goes on and you know the whole time this is just leading up to the whole thing collapsing in on itself.

Shooting the Warwicks isn’t a bad movie, but it is deeply uncomfortable and the more uneasy I got the more I found myself enjoying it. It’s easy to see some scumbag producer going as far as creating a show like this, because the studio’s lawyers research the potential consequences and at worst the show could be liable for $1.5 million in damages total should the family sue. The actors are all fantastic in their roles.

Except Ron Jeremy, who plays the sleazy porn guy well because he was just a sleazy porn guy.  To be fair to the creators though this film was made a good three years before any of the allegations against Jeremy came out.

Ultimately Shooting the Warwicks deserved more public recognition in my view. It’s a film with a great premise, fantastic actors, and an ending that that will leave you feeling yucky inside as it is supposed to. Don’t watch it with your parents unless you really like watching as graphic of a sex scene as you can get while still maintaining the softcore rating.

Rating: B+