Scare Campaign

Plot

Scare Campaign is a hidden camera prank show that has been scaring its targets with old school scares for the last 5 years. Their latest target (John Brumpton) nearly ends up shooting an actress thinking she's a real zombie until the crew reveals to him that it's all on TV. Emma (Meegan Warner), another actress on the show, speaks to her director and ex-boyfriend Marcus (Ian Meadows) about being more careful who they prank in case they end up scaring "the wrong guy", but Marcus reassures her. Later that morning, their manager, Vicki (Sigrid Thornton) shows them a web series called Masked Freaks that involve a bunch of costumed people killing other people gruesomely. The contents of this web series threatens Scare Campaign's popularity and so Vicki encourages the team to up the ante to increase their ratings.

Hiring a new and young actress named Abby (Olivia DeJonge), Marcus and the team take their next prank to an abandoned psychiatric hospital where they intend to a prank a new groundskeeper, Rohan (Josh Quong Tart). As the prank goes along as planned, Emma starts having second thoughts about it and leaves Rohan alone, where he explores the asylum through many of the team's special effects, despite Emma's pleas to end the prank. When Abby is signalled to surprise him, Rohan stabs her to death with a letter opener, strangles cameraman Tony (Steve Mouzakis) and slits the throat of background actress Suze (Cassandra Magrath). Emma and special effects specialist J.D. (Patrick Harvey) barricade themselves in a room and begs Marcus and camera operator Dick (Jason Geary) to call the police before Rohan breaks in and kills Marcus and Dick, then smiles into the camera. Emma and J.D. make it to the van to escape, but J.D. runs back inside to find the keys. Rohan appears in the van, but Emma stabs his hand with a screwdriver into the car seat and runs inside. It's then revealed that the whole predicament was a prank and Emma was their new stooge. Trent, the actor playing Rohan, berates Marcus and quits.

Suddenly, Masked Freaks appear with weapons equipped to their cameras and kills Trent, revealing themselves as actual serial killers and not actors as the web series made it look. They proceed to murder the other members of Scare Campaign, while Marcus runs back inside after finding Trent dead. He tries to warn Emma, who yells at him and ignores his warning after discovering she was the real stooge of their prank. She finally believes him and they both run inside and find Suze's body and witness Tony getting killed. Masked Freaks hack into Scare Campaign's computer system and reveal they do what they do for the new generation of online entertainment. They then bury Abby alive and give Marcus and Emma five minutes to save her before she runs out of oxygen. Marcus and Emma run out to save Abby and end up killing one of the Masked Freaks, who is revealed to be merely a teenager. After saving Abby, the three are surrounded by the Masked Freaks and their boss tells Emma she may leave with either Marcus or Abby. She chooses Abby and kisses Marcus before leaving with Abby. While they're driving away, the Masked Freaks reveal to Marcus that Abby was their spy the whole time before wheeling Marcus on a stretcher into a furnace. On the drive back to town, Emma notices one of the Masked Freaks cameras in the van pointing at her, leaving her to wonder about Abby's involvement.

Cast

Reception

Andrew L. Urban at UrbanCinefile.com gave a positive review, writing "Propelled by an ever-inventive screenplay, Scare Campaign revels in surprising us while scaring us. To its credit, we don't see the twists coming, and the Russian Doll-type structure gives the film a rich texture."