History Film / PennAndTellerGetKilled

* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Teller keeps contriving to make the airport metal detector go off every time Penn walks through it. By the end, a frustrated Penn screams, "I'll walk through the detector '''''NAKED!!!''''' offscreen.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: It ends with everyone dying. And then Penn's voiceover at the end takes care to assure the viewer that the pull-out shot of the city is not an implication that they went to heaven; they're just dead. Every major Western religion disapproves of suicide, after all.]]

''Penn & Teller Get Killed'' (retitled ''Dead Serious'' in some regions) is a 1989 BlackComedy directed by Arthur Penn, featuring double act PennAndTeller (who also wrote the movie) playing themselves as their stage personas offstage. Confused yet?

Meanwhile, the two magicians [[TheCastShowOff do some magic tricks]], [[EdutainmentShow demonstrate that psychic surgeons are]] [[PennAndTellerBullshit bullshit]], and [[EscalatingWar play increasingly mean tricks on one another]].

* AuthorTract: The duo really do love to expose fakery like psychic surgery. [[HilariousInHindsight Which makes sense considering their television series]] ''PennAndTellerBullshit''.

* SmokingIsCool: Penn randomly smokes in the FilmNoir-parody DeliberatelyMonochrome sequence.

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding]]: [[spoiler: It ends with [[KillEmAll everyone dying]]. And then Penn's voiceover at the end takes care to assure the viewer that the pull-out shot of the city is not an implication that they went to heaven; they're [[CessationOfExistence just dead]]. Every major Western religion disapproves of suicide, after all.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: More than you can count, though most of them are [[SuicideAsComedy very much]] PlayedForLaughs. [[spoiler: First Teller, upon realizing he has actually killed Penn; then Carlotta as she realizes they're both dead; then [[RuleOfThree the actor playing the Fan, as he realizes the whole apartment is set up to make him look like a psycho who wants to kill Penn and Teller, and he thinks he couldn't handle prison]]; then [[UpToEleven his friend as he realizes being associated with this would kill his potential career in politics]]; then [[OverlyLongGag the office-work-loving policeman who never wanted to see something like that]]; then the [[{{Retirony}} nearly-retired other police officer who came with him]]; and then [[RefugeInAudacity still more unseen people who discover the scene as we pull out over the city]].]] It is implied this starts a worldwide wave of pointless suicides.

-->'''Penn:''' Oh, yeah. We're dead and there's no way out. I mean, it couldn't be a gag, it couldn't be a joke. [[AllJustADream We're not gonna have one of the characters wake up from a bad dream]]; [[LampshadeHanging you'd hate us for that!]] I mean the movie is called ''Penn & Teller Get Killed.'' We '''''had''''' to get killed at the end, there's no way out of that. We were married to that ending from the moment we thought of the title, and now we've actually killed off ourselves, and there's no taking that back. And this whole pullback, this is not us going to heaven. We're just dead. I mean, those were suicides, frowned upon by every major Western religion, and Atlantic City is in the Western world, so... Penn and Teller are dead. That's it. Thanks. Hope you enjoyed it. You can imagine the sequel thing is kind of a bitch.

*** "Are we live?!" is also irony given the title of the film. [[spoiler: And the ending.]]

* [[spoiler: KillEmAll]]: [[spoiler: Everyone involved dies at the end. [[RefugeInAudacity And then a bunch of people who weren't involved at all die too, for good measure.]]]]

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: See HeroicBSOD.

* PullBackShot: The final shot.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: ...yeah.

* HypocriticalHumor: Plenty. For example, when a reporter asks Penn how the "swords in the box" trick is done, he refuses, claiming that while Penn and Teller are the "bad boys of magic", they never reveal how tricks are done. A second later, the ''film'' shows how the trick is done.

-->'''Penn:''' Oh, yeah. We're dead and there's no way out. I mean, it couldn't be a gag, it couldn't be a joke. We're not gonna have one of the characters wake up from a bad dream; you'd hate us for that! I mean the movie is called ''Penn & Teller Get Killed.'' We '''''had''''' to get killed at the end, there's no way out of that. We were married to that ending from the moment we thought of the title, and now we've actually killed off ourselves, and there's no taking that back. And this whole pullback, this is not us going to heaven. We're just dead. I mean, those were suicides, frowned upon by every major Western religion, and Atlantic City is in the Western world, so... Penn and Teller are dead. That's it. Thanks. Hope you enjoyed it. You can imagine the sequel thing is kind of a bitch.

''Penn & Teller Get Killed'' is a 1989 BlackComedy directed by Arthur Penn, featuring double act PennAndTeller (who also wrote the movie) playing themselves as their stage personas offstage. Confused yet?

* DeadlyPrank: [[spoiler: Both Penn and Teller end up dead as a result of Penn's prank. [[RefugeInAudacity So do at least ten other people, in fact. And possibly the entire rest of the world's population.]]

* DeadlyPrank: [[spoiler: Both Penn and Teller end up dead as a result of Penn's prank. [[RefugeInAudacity So do at least ten other people, in fact.]] [[BeyondTheImpossible And possibly the entire rest of the world's population.]]]]

* DrivenToSuicide: More than you can count, though most of them are [[SuicideAsComedy very much]] PlayedForLaughs. [[spoiler: First Teller, upon realizing he has actually killed Penn; then Carlotta as she realizes they're both dead; then [[RuleOfThree the actor playing the Fan, as he realizes the whole apartment is set up to make him look like a psycho who wants to kill Penn and Teller, and he thinks he couldn't handle prison]]; then [[UpToEleven his friend as he realizes being associated with this would kill his potential career in politics]]; then [[OverlyLongGag the office-work-loving policeman who never wanted to see something like that]]; then the [[{{Retirony}} nearly-retired]] [[BeyondTheImpossible other police officer who came with him]]; and then [[RefugeInAudacity still more unseen people who discover the scene as we pull out over the city]].]] It is implied this starts a worldwide wave of pointless suicides.

* SuicideAsComedy: The end has this, to BeyondTheImpossible levels: it is implied that it sets off a wave of increasingly ridiculous suicides around the entire world.