History Series / ScareTactics

Creator/{{Syfy}}'s CandidCameraPrank show that put unsuspecting people into weird and often frightening situations. Creator/TracyMorgan hosts.

Formerly hosted by Creator/ShannenDoherty. It puts people in seemingly paranormal experiences, sorta like ''Series/{{Punkd}}'' but with aliens and vampires.

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!!Contains Examples of:

* BloodBath: One prank set up the target as a new employee at a health spa "for professional clientele" that uses "very expensive ingredients." Along with female clients who come in for rejuvenation treatments is a list of younger women and their corresponding blood types. The exact scare prank involved the target walking in as one young woman is being bled over a bathtub that an older client was bathing in.
* CatchPhrase: Usually to end the pranks, an actor would ask the victim, "Are you scared?" The victim would say some variant of "yes" or just be too scared to say anything and the actor would say "You shouldn't be. You're on Scare Tactics."
* ChainsawGood: One prank had a woman working for a kitchen, only to walk in on the chef using a chainsaw to cut off a homeless guy's leg. Not knowing what to do, she handed the homeless man a paper towel.
* ClusterFBomb: Though bleeped by the network, this is a fairly common reaction of people on the show to either the horrors they're subjected to or when they find out they were on a hidden camera show.
* CreepyChild: A lot of pranks featured these--psychic creepy children, murderous creepy children, {{Yandere}} creepy children, a creepy child-ghost...
* DeadlyPrank:
** Somewhat averted in that a couple of occasions, the actors clearly cut a scare short when the target is showing signs of excessive distress.
** There's also another form of prank they do, in which the victim believes THEY are pulling the prank for a show called ''Fear Antics''. The prank they think they're pulling usually results in a (supposed) death, and then we see the ''real'' prank beginning.
* DeadpanSnarker: Shannen Doherty
* DistractedByTheSexy: How they lurned their victim into their sacrifice circle.
* DontTryThisAtHome: The disclaimer at the beginning of the show, and with more than good cause.
* GenuineHumanHide: One prank involves a leather works that uses human skin.
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: A trophy hunter who keeps human victims in cramped cages, then releases them to shoot down, features in a Season 1 scenario.
* ImAHumanitarian: A fair number of pranks involve encounters with cannibals. One note worthy example involves a wine maker who uses human blood as his secret ingredient.
* LandMineGoesClick: One prank involves the victim and his "friends" caught in a minefield when this happens to him.
* TheMafia: Some of the pranks involved them.
* PlayingWithFire: At least one scare involved a pyrokinetic child.
* PsychopathicManchild: Some pranks involve one.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: A few pranks ended prematurely with the victim escaping before they finished the bit; for instance, one woman squeezed past a {{Mook}} trying to box her in and fled into the streets. One had to be ended in an extreme hurry (with all the actors breaking character mid-sentence) due to the victim preferring to jump out of a window rather than stay.
* ShamefulStrip: To the [[spoiler: accomplice]] half-naked.[[spoiler: Subverted that he agreed to this to fool the victim]]
* ShotgunWedding: One prank had the victim almost getting one.
* ShoutOut: During the prologue of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19j0yTUZEFk Convo with a Killer]]", a scripted scene occurs with the smiling murderer being driven to the scene of his interview. The cop driving the car asks, "What are you smiling about?" The murderer replies, [[{{Film/Se7en}} "We're getting close."]]
* ShowWithinAShow:
** "Fear Antics" is the fake version of ''Scare Tactics'', where the victim thinks they're setting someone else up before things go horribly wrong.
** Another gimmick revolves around a parody of the program ''Cheaters'', in which the victim is set up with a camera crew as they spy on someone cheating on their spouse. One victim saw a cheating man enter an abandoned warehouse with his lover, and then entered the warehouse only to see the man surrounded by black garbage bags and holding a bloody knife.
* SpecialGuest: [[ProfessionalWrestling Matt Hardy]]. Unlike ''Punk'd'', he was the one doing the scaring. After TheReveal, the victim [[FridgeLogic claimed to be a WWE fan]].
* StiffUpperLip: Some victims take the crazy stuff that's thrown at them exceedingly well.
* SurvivalMantra: During a prank involving a vampire biting people, the victim kept repeating "Everything is fine" to herself. Even when things... weren't.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Or rather, what you are at your most vulnerable. Oftentimes victims will beg for their lives, or even make desperate, less-than-righteous bargains when threatened. Once in a while, though, victims will display some degree of bravery and try to protect their allied actors. One victim even tried to scare away aliens who were closing in on him and a young girl on an abandoned bus.
* {{Yandere}}: Some of the pranks involve the actor playing this. One of the earlier pranks had a man keeping his "wife" chained to the bed and drugging her daily, then offering to do the same for the victim.
* YourHeadASplode: One scare involved experimentation of a dog collar -- with human subjects, including two lab techs and the victim. The draw of this collar is that it cannot be removed by force -- it requires the remote control. During testing, a man enraged that his patent over it was stolen seizes control and murders the testers, including remotely causing the collar on one of them to explode.
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* YouLookFamiliar: Several actors appear in various pranks.

* ImAHumanitarian: A fair number of pranks invovle encounters with cannibals. One note worthy example involves a wine maker who uses human blood as his secret ingredient.

* HumanResources: One prank involves a leather works that uses human skin.

** Another gimmick revolves around a parody of the program ''[[YourCheatingHeart Cheaters]]'', in which the victim is set up with a camera crew as they spy on someone cheating on their spouse. One victim saw a cheating man enter an abandoned warehouse with his lover, and then entered the warehouse only to see the man surrounded by black garbage bags and holding a bloody knife.

* YourHeadASplode: One scare involved experimentation of a dog collar -- with human subjects, including two lab techs and the victim. The draw of this collar is that it cannot be removed by force -- it requires the remote control. During testing, a man enraged that his patent over it was stolen seizes control and murders the testers, including remotely causing the collar one of them to explode.

Creator/{{Syfy}}'s CandidCameraPrank show that put unsuspecting people into weird and often frightening situations. Tracy Morgan hosts.

Creator/{{Syfy}}'s CandidCameraPrank show that put unsuspecting people into weird and often frightening situations. [[Series/ThirtyRock Tracy]] [[Series/SaturdayNightLive Morgan]] hosts.

Formerly hosted by [[Series/{{Charmed}} Shannen Doherty]]. It puts people in seemingly paranormal experiences, sorta like ''Series/{{Punkd}}'' but with aliens and vampires.

* DeadlyPrank: Somewhat averted in that a couple of occasions, the actors clearly cut a scare short when the target is showing signs of excessive distress.

* ShowWithinAShow: "Fear Antics" is the fake version of ''Scare Tactics'', where the victim thinks they're setting someone else up before things go horribly wrong.

* GenreSavvy: There was an episode in which they unknowingly tried to prank a friend of the show. The results were actually less than stellar. He apparently realized immediately what was going on, sat and politely listed to everything the "government agents" said without a reaction, and when they said they were from "a show called Scare Tactics" he simply responded "and I love it."