TORONTO - What is your deepest, darkest, most innermost fear?
Participants come face-to-face with what scares them most in "Panic Button," which premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on Space.
Volunteers are outfitted in red jumpsuits and helmets and invited to wander through a Big Brother-style house of horrors in an environment that is "Saw" scary. Besides all manner of psychological terror, including being blindfolded, confined in tight spaces and wading through muck, they also have to endure live snakes, spiders and rats.
It all takes place is what was — appropriately enough — once a slaughterhouse in Toronto's west end.
This too-much-reality series features many slasher film motifs. Stark white rooms with "No Exit" stencilled on the wall above the entranceway give way to darkened, creepy corridors littered with hoses, wires and ankle-deep swill. At one point, players are confined in a standup metal booth the size of a coffin which is then pushed through a wall of flames.
That's the easy part. Then the critters are unleashed. In some episodes, even Dobermans.
“This is psychotic," says one woman who braved her way into level three.
A disclaimer at the end tells viewers that "No harm was done to any animal" during the course of production. What about the humans?
Players are given red, lit panic buttons they wear on their suits and can push the second it all gets too intense. The surprise in the pilot is who slaps theirs first and who holds out till the bitter end.
The strength of the series is all in the power of suggestion, says Jonathan Dueck ("Destination Fear"), one of two producers who gave reporters a walking tour of the creepy set.
Dueck explained that a disembodied voice (sounding like a woman with a slight British accent) gives participants seconds to follow commands. People are blindfolded and stripped of cellphones. Fifty per cent of the participants don't get past the first maze.
Women, reports fellow producer Kevin Healey ("Scare Tactics"), are more likely to be brave and proceed farther into the maze. Men are generally 'fraidy cats. "Guys are falling like fall leaves," says Healey.
There is a disturbing kinkiness to some scenes. Women are shown shackled in Plexiglas cages, arms in chains. A smaller Plexiglas box is lowered onto one woman's head. Snakes are then dumped into the box, slithering around her neck and right before her eyes.
Five participants in the first episode, between ages 19 and 31, are reduced to screaming swear machines as they wander about in the darkness. One is a music teacher afraid of snakes, another an amusement ride operator who hates rats.
One man, Kayvon, is a pharmaceutical sales rep described as "an ultra-competitive alpha male." He takes the challenge despite being "scared of bunny rabbits." One woman says she is doing this to prove to her young niece that she's "no scaredy cat."
All say they are doing this to overcome fears, but most must leave with vivid new nightmares. This series should be sponsored by an adult diaper company.
Participants are carefully tested and screened; people with heart conditions need not apply. All sign disclaimers the size of phone books.
In what might be the scariest news of all, there is no prize money awarded for making it all the way through this chamber of horrors.
"People just like to test their limits," says Healey, who sees his show as one big, psychological testing ground. "There are bragging rights to say you confronted your deepest fear and conquered it."
Joel Klein, one of the original producers on "Fear Factor," is also a consultant on this series, but really, "Panic Button" makes "Fear Factor" look like "Dancing with the Stars."
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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.
