Terrifying ‘Fear Factor: House of Fear’ Premiere Clip Shows Creatures Running Amok
Well, it’s back, if you dare to tune in for it. “Fear Factor,” the daredevil stunt show that had its NBC start and its heyday in the 2000s, began its third revival (following a 2011-12 second run on NBC and a brief MTV stint eight years ago), courtesy of Fox, on Jan. 11. This time, the host isn’t UFC commentator Joe Rogan, but an announcer who’s previously been in a daredevil ring himself: “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville. A couple of weeks ago, the Fox YouTube channel “Reality Club” released a 45-second “Fear Factor” clip that provided a preview of one coming challenge, which was rather tame in comparison with Knoxville’s most punishing exploits.
An Animal-Based Endurance Test in a Confined Booth
The clip, which dropped on YouTube on December 29, shows four “Fear Factor” contestants, two men and two women (this even gender breakdown is standard for the show), each of whom stands in a glass-walled (on three sides) booth with a hole at the top. Each contestant also appears to be standing in a narrow hole surrounded by a waist-high platform; thus, they are unable to move their legs. The booths are already filled with live crickets, many of which crawl on the upper bodies of the contestants. The real endurance test, however, comes when each contestant receives a load of small animals dumped on their head.
Each “Fear Factor” contestant receives a different species. One woman, Jayleen, at least gets to coexist with fellow mammals: specifically, a load of squeaking rats descends upon her. Judging from the fact that some of them have white fur, they’re certainly of the domesticated variety, which means that there shouldn’t be much danger of disease or aggression. Arguably more unsanitary is the predicament of Ethan, who receives a small flock of pigeons – standing as still as he is in the booth, he could basically function like a statue.
The other two contestants, Rodney and Kristen, are both subjected to an animal class that ranks high on the fear factor for many humans: reptiles. Rodney receives a load of geckos (he’s arguably the luckiest one – they may do something about the swarm of crickets), while Kristen suffers the arrival of the creatures often declared to be the epitome of vertebrate odiousness: snakes. As small pythons fall around and onto her, she utters bleeped expletives and the repeated assertion: “I want out.”
The Animals Have It Worst
A close-up shot of one python, however, suggests that the snakes may want out as much as Kristen does. This close-up shows the snake’s eyes to be heavily clouded, which indicates that it’s in the process of shedding its skin: an inconvenient exercise that enervates it and impairs its vision. It’s in this condition that the snake has suffered a sudden fall of several feet. Which party, then, is suffering the hardest on “Fear Factor” – the humans who must endure standing in place while animals that they’ve subjectively declared to be repugnant fall around them, or the small animals that must endure circumstances that could cause them objective bodily harm?
Of course, this is not a novel concern to raise in regard to “Fear Factor.” Animal stunts of this type have been part and parcel of the show since its inception. Indeed, they’re sometimes of a worse nature: in 2012, Change.org produced a petition protesting the animal cruelty in the episode “Snake Bite,” which required contestants to lift pythons with their teeth after these snakes had been “cooled to an unhealthy temperature.” When Knoxville stripped down to his skivvies and climbed a tightrope across an alligator pond with a chunk of chicken meat stuffed inside them, at least you knew that only the human who’d chosen to sign up for the stunt had a chance of getting hurt by it.
A Seriously Polarizing Show
Will the latest iteration of “Fear Factor” get away with its callous disregard for animal welfare? Whatever repercussions the show may or may not face in 2026, it certainly hasn’t made any attempt to conceal such ethically questionable content. “Fear Factor” is the kind of show that many people are likely either to love or to hate, and it remains to be seen which side will prevail when it comes to this reboot.
