Stream It Or Skip It?

Fear Factor: House Of Fear on Fox is a revival of the 2001-06 NBC reality competition series Fear Factor, but modernized a bit to fit 2020s standards. Johnny Knoxville replaces Joe Rogan as host (Ludacris hosted a version on MTV in the 2010s), and now the competition is season-long instead of contained in a single episode. Fourteen contestants will be subject to challenges involving their greatest fears and then live with each other in a massive, creepily-decorated house. The winner of the competition wins $200,000.

Opening Shot: We see a shot of the house the contestants on Fear Factor: House Of Fear will live in. “Fear is a primal instinct,” says the voice of host Johnny Knoxville.

The Gist:  When Knoxville introduces himself to the contestants, they’re paired off by matching the quease-inducing gifts they’re given, from hairy tarantulas to dead rats to skinned animal skulls.

That night, the teams participate in their first challenge, “Sealed Fates,” which hits on both fears of claustrophobia and suffication. The team members are vacuum-sealed in a massive plastic bag, with only a skinny tube to help them breathe. As the bag squeezes against them, they have to hold steady for a period of time; when a buzzer rings, they then have to climb up the bag, push two buttons, get out and stand on their podiums. Anyone who pushes a panic button to get out or isn’t among the first two teams to exit is subject to elimination.

The four members of the two winning teams get to pick who participates in the “End Game”, which will determine who goes home. The entire next day, the members of the house lobby the winners to not pick them, and the group of winners themselves have disagreements. The four winners also get a “first look” at the “End Game,” in order to fine-tune who to select.

In the first “End Game,” called “Hall of Fame,” the four contestants are put in booths and buckets of creatures (crickets, rats, snakes, pigeons, lizards) are dumped in, as well as capsules that have codes in them. Three codes means you can leave. The first one who bails before getting all the codes or the last one stuck in their booth gets eliminated.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Like we said, this is a revival of Fear Factor, but now it has a house element grafted onto it, making it Fear Factor crossed with an alliance-heavy competition show like Big Brother or The Traitors.

Our Take: If there was anyone who could take the place of Joe Rogan on Fear Factor and surpass him, it’s Johnny Knoxville. He’s got that impish personality, and that cackle that shows how much he’s really enjoying watching people be deeply uncomfortable. It’s one of the things that made Jackass such a success and it translates well here. Heck, with his white hair and sweater-vest laden wardrobe, Knoxville comes off as some demented mad scentist in the first episode.

The challenges are typical Fear Factor, and are as scary-looking and vomit-inducing as they’ve ever been — at least if the preview of the season we see at the begnning and end of the episode is any indication. Even though the first challenge played more on fears instead of upping the gross quotient, the idea of being vacuum sealed in a plastic bag would scare the crap out of us. And the “End Game” challenge creeped us the hell out, so it did its job.

The house part of the competition, where alliances are made and “bad guys” are determined was less interesting. It didn’t even seem to be necessary; it could have still be a season-long competition without the silliness of people flirting with each other or having fights over who picked who.

In the first episode, for instance, one of the winners seems to be fixated on picking one or two of the women contestants he feels are the fakest, and another winner refuses to pick any women because, well, because they’re good looking. We can see that kind of stuff on other shows; on Fear Factor, we just want people to eat pig’s blood and come face-to-face with snakes or be covered in bees.

Performance Worth Watching: Zach sports a heck of a mullet and a collection of eyewear that screams “creepy shop teacher.” He might end up being the “bad guy” of this season.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: We do see an elimination, and the rest of the cast goes back to the house to see what “Johnny has in store for us.”

Sleeper Star: Jayleen decides to go the flirtatious route to gain an advantage when the elimination candidates were being selected, a ploy that seldom works.

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re still trying to figure out how the contestants were able to breathe with that tube during the episode’s challenge, since they must have been instructed not to put the tube to their mouths.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We like Fear Factor: House Of Fear for the stunts, as gross as they can get, and for Knoxville’s gleefully sadistic hosting. The house stuff is superfluous, but the episodes still move quickly enough for us to enjoy.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.