Willingly filming a slasher? Hmm...

Yea I was thinking Jim Carrey throughout the film...a lot of the same characteristics..

Okay, going to try to address some of your concerns,may not be the consensus, but this is my take on it.

First, the big question..why the heck would anyone agree to do this? this is not a rational act, the act of a law-abiding citizen in any normal sense, as it is abetting and becoming to some extent accessory to murder, tacitly before the fact and definitely after the fact. BUT, having said that, the characters are film students trying to make a documentary, trying to make something stand out, and seeing documentary makers around them skirt ethical behavior and getting award nominations, grants, and sponsorships, so their possibly being tempted can be a little more undesrstandable, at least to the point of being pushed into a viable 'suspension of disbelief' territory. Having scouted such people, finding his survivor girl there, Leslie may have approached them to start with, it's never clear how the team and Leslie got connected, even though we see their first meeting in the film, it is with some foreknowledge.

The film is a satire and therefore, the humor is more contextual than funny, the way that we see a 'science of the slasher movie villain' and the breakdown of the rules and concepts, even to the inclusion of their opponents and their roles, i.e., Ahab, Survivor Girl, etc... this is where the humor lies, and adding to that, the commentary on documentary makers willing to put themselves in morally indefensible positions to get their films made (referring back to the first paragraph) not so much a bit of humor as social satire without mirth.

Did Eugene and his wife know that Taylor was the survivor girl? this is not outright spoken, but i'm reasonably certain they did, the hints are small but there...Eugene's comment about 'i like her', and there was a strangely 'big sister' kind of vibe that i got from his wife towards Taylor, a looking in a mirror reflecting the past and hoping that the girl will rise to the challenge.

on a side note, if you can watch the dvd, you see a few moments in the deleted scenes that make it a bit clearer that Leslie and Eugene's characters are not to be taken entirely seriously (notably the 'why doesn't the killer run' scene, and eugene's listing of the various ways he's 'seemed to die', including decapitation.)

You're right. Movies and books are made to make us lose that sense of reality. Too many reality shows have influenced the culture way too much.