| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/73510b89_9b53_4f16_a520_3031de618a0d.jpeg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350:James A. Janisse doing what he does best: countin' kills (Pictured here in front of The Numbers for the 2007 film adaptation of ''Literature/TheMist'')]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies!"'' |
| 5 | -->-- '''James A. Janisse''', the opening to each episode[[note]]The line has since been modified to end with [[ShownTheirWork "And show you how they were made!"]] to clarify that the show does more than just count the kills to newer viewers.[[/note]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ''The Kill Count'' is a web video series on the {{horror}} Website/YouTube channel WebVideo/DeadMeat, of which it has become the flagship series since its creation in 2017. Hosted primarily by the channel's creator James A. Janisse, the series offers a humorous summary of horror/thriller films while counting down the kills that appear in the film. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Each episode consists of James going through a specific film, showing clips and making snarky jokes along the way, in order to list whenever a character dies, timestamp their death in the film's runtime, and note the cause of death. By the episode's end, he will tally up the total kills in the film, identify the gender (and/or species) ratio of victims, divide the film's runtime by its number of kills to find the average amount of time between kills, and award two medals (the "Golden Chainsaw" and the "Dull Machete") respectively to the film's "coolest" and "lamest" kills. Even though the series focuses on deaths and gore effects, James also offers his personal takes and gives behind-the-scenes facts about the films he covers. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | While many of the show's episodes are hosted by James, guest hosts have been utilized during times when James takes a break from hosting, namely Chelsea Rebecca (James' wife and the host of the ''Podcast/DeadMeatPodcast'') and Zoran Gvojic (Dead Meat editor of ''Lowcarbcomedy'' fame). |
| 12 | |
| 13 | The "Kill Count Champion" record for highest number of kills in a single installment was previously acquired on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maStCalfei8 January 15, 2021]] by ''Film/ZombielandDoubleTap'' with an estimated 376 deaths until it was ''thoroughly'' ousted on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IioxDqhRXI October 7, 2022]] by ''Film/DudeBroPartyMassacre3'' with an estimated '''4295''' deaths, only for ''its'' reign to be ''utterly'' '''''annihilated''''' on [[https://youtu.be/15AHUZpNDMw?feature=shared October 27, 2023]] by ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'' with a mind-boggling estimated '''''800,054''''' deaths. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | ---- |
| 16 | !!Let's get to the tropes!: |
| 17 | * ActorAllusion: James is fond of making these as jokes to reference the filmography of other actors, such as suggesting Miguel A. Núñez Jr.'s character in ''Film/Leprechaun4InSpace'' possesses singing skills in reference to his death scene in ''Film/FridayThe13thPartVANewBeginning.'' |
| 18 | * AlternateCharacterInterpretation: [[invoked]]During his kill counts for the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' franchise, James notes that the variety of {{Freudian Excuse}}s[[note]]cancer diagnosis, surviving car crash, the miscarriage of his son caused by a junkie[[/note]] that John Kramer has for starting this whole "Jigsaw" business, makes him ask if John Kramer simply just looked for an excuse to put people in horrifying death traps. |
| 19 | * AndIMustScream: {{Subverted|Trope}} as part of ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'''s "To The Number" gag. James is suddenly killed and a new James pops out of a portal saying "[[ArcWords It's an eternity in there]]," only to [[BaitAndSwitch express enjoyment]] towards the experience. He even states a desire to go back since being [[YearInsideHourOutside there]] let him be more productive. |
| 20 | * AprilFoolsDay: In 2019, he posted a video that appeared to be a kill count for ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. Naturally, it wasn't. James outright says doing a Kill Count episode on that movie would be impossible, given its DownerEnding. It was instead a Kill Count of the ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' episode "And Then, There Was Shawn." |
| 21 | * ArtisticLicenseStatistics: Discussed. James will give a kill-on-average ratio at the end of each count, though he often points out in some films that most of the kills came only at the end or were packed in at certain points, leading to the "there were X kills on average every Y minutes" conclusion sometimes being very unlike the real distribution. In ''Never Hike Alone'', James even acknowledges that there were only two kills in the movie, both of which came in the last five minutes. He also acknowledged this during his covering of ''Film/GetOut2017'', since all eight of the deaths happened in the last fifteen minutes. In the video for ''Film/FinalDestination'', he notes that it's the highest body count in the series due to the Flight 180 explosion and that it ''completely'' throws the simple math off. |
| 22 | ** The plane crash [[spoiler:that Brandon Breyer deliberately caused]] near the end of ''Film/{{Brightburn}}'' brought him back bad memories of the ''Final Destination'' Kill Counts too due to how it artificially hyperinflated the kills in it. |
| 23 | ** The ending of ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' appears to have a high number because [[spoiler:the Ancient Ones awaken and cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]]. However, James doesn't count that, since it's ambiguous as to exactly what happened. |
| 24 | ** Discussed in the into to the AprilFoolsDay episode of ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', where James outright refuses to do a kill count for that, owing to its DownerEnding where [[spoiler:TheBadGuyWins and Thanos wipes out half of the entire universe with the Infinity Gauntlet]]. James says doing a kill count for that movie would be outright impossible. |
| 25 | * BaitAndSwitch: |
| 26 | ** Before he gets to the numbers for ''Film/AliensVsPredatorRequiem'', James hears a jet overhead, and it initially appears that he's about to suffer the same fate as [[spoiler:[[NukeEm the last 42 deaths from the movie]]]]. Turns out it was just a Blue Angels show, which James goes to watch. |
| 27 | ** During "The Numbers" for ''Film/{{Us}}'', James, in full Tethered gear, speaks in a raspy voice before he breaks character early and talks normally. |
| 28 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The trailer for the recount of ''Film/JasonGoesToHellTheFinalFriday'' describes the film as this for every ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' fan who thought that the series had turned into a [[invoked]] FranchiseZombie and wanted it to try something new besides Jason killing teenagers at Crystal Lake. What they got was a movie with barely any Jason in it and a plot about DemonicPossession by Jason's spirit. |
| 29 | * BerserkButton: |
| 30 | ** While James usually has a rather neutral reaction to most of the bad movies that he watches, he seems to absolutely despise ''Film/Saw3D''. Best shown when he brings up the movie's most infamous scene, [[spoiler:Joyce burning to death]], during the ''Film/FinalDestination3'' kill count. |
| 31 | --->'''James:''' [[PrecisionFStrike Fuck]] I hate that movie. |
| 32 | ** He doesn't really like finding piles of dead bodies in movies and having to count them as well, as evidenced by this line from his Kill Count for the Banana Splits Movie when Paige finds the rest of the adults dead in a heap. |
| 33 | --->'''James:''' Aw, what the fuck? COME ON! |
| 34 | * BiasSteamroller: |
| 35 | ** James revealed that ''Film/IllAlwaysKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' is his most hated horror movie of all time. When he finally does a Kill Count on it, he makes that fact perfectly clear. He sounds bored in his intro and opening narration, and instead of going into detail about the movie's production, he just says "this movie fucking sucks" before getting right to the recap. And before [[CouchGag getting to the numbers]], instead of doing anything from the movie, James smacks the film's DVD off his shelf and [[FlippingTheBird flips it off]]. James reiterates during the video's outro (and in earlier ''Last Summer'' videos as well) that ''I'll Always Know'' is his least-favorite horror movie of all time. He'd later call ''Film/MortalKombatAnnihilation'' the worst film to be covered on the kill count, although it doesn't bother him as much. |
| 36 | ** James would later call ''Film/{{Thankskilling}} 3'' the worst movie he's ever covered, and makes it clear throughout the Kill Count how much he despises the film. He ''tries'' to give his usual opening, but gives up halfway through to rant about how he's only covering it because people wouldn't stop flooding his comments with requests for it. He insults the movie's plot and production values throughout the count, and doesn't even bother saying, "Let's get to the numbers", after recapping the film; he instead begrudgingly says, "let's get this shit over with" and just walks offscreen. |
| 37 | * BigNo: |
| 38 | ** James lets out a real one of these during the outro in ''Mandy'' because the prop axe that resembled the one from the movie fell off of his bookcase, breaking in half when it hit the floor. Luckily, James was sent a free replacement axe before the Kill Count happened. |
| 39 | ** Also, when James finally realizes he's going to have to cover ''Thankskilling 3''. |
| 40 | ** Speaking of ''Thankskilling'', In the ''[[Film/{{Critters}} Critters Attack!]]'' kill count, James lets out one when a cameoing Jordan Downey[[note]]The director and writer of both ''Thankskilling'' films[[/note]] decides to start writing ''Thankskilling 4''. |
| 41 | * BigWhat: James' shocked reaction to learning that the JerkAss Coach in ''Carrie 2'' is the son of none other then former US President UsefulNotes/GeraldFord. |
| 42 | * BlackDudeDiesFirst: James mentions in the ''Film/Scream2'' Kill Recount that in his years of counting deaths in horror movies, he found this trope is not as common as it's stereotyped to be and mentions the piece of media criticism that helped spawn the term was focused more on ''action'' movies. |
| 43 | * BloodyHilarious: The juxtaposition of James making pop culture references over scenes of death and murder are part of the draw of the series. While the hosts do occasionally comment on more serious matters whenever they come up in the movies, James A. Janisse has admitted that the series is an excuse to make jokes. |
| 44 | * BriefAccentImitation: |
| 45 | ** At the start of the ''Film/WolfCreek'' kill count, James gives his typical greeting in an Australian accent due to the movie's setting. He then drops it and apologizes for it. |
| 46 | ** The ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'' kill count opens with James imitating [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Scout's]] Bronx accent before he drops it for the rest of the video. |
| 47 | * BrokeTheRatingScale: |
| 48 | ** The lazy and uninspired kills in ''Film/SilentNightDeadlyNightIIIBetterWatchOut'' did this for James to the point of giving ''all'' of the kills the "Dull Machete" award. This happened again in ''Film/TexasChainsawMassacreTheNextGeneration''. |
| 49 | ** ''Film/IllAlwaysKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' had the entire movie get the Dull Machete award, except for one kill that James especially liked. It even runs through the whole film (credits and all) in just a few seconds. |
| 50 | ** Despite ''Film/TheExorcist'' being a classic, James did not give out a Golden Chainsaw since all the kills were boring and he didn't include the one interesting kill[[labelnote:spoilers]]Father Karras[[/labelnote]] since they technically showed up alive in ''Film/TheExorcistIII''. |
| 51 | ** Conversely, ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet5TheDreamChild'', ''Film/LeprechaunReturns'', ''Film/TheWitch'', ''Film/TheShining'', ''Film/BetterWatchOut'', ''[[Film/NeverHikeAlone Never Hike In The Snow]]'', ''Film/{{Society}}'', ''Film/{{Midsommar}}'', ''Film/Stitches2012'', ''Film/TheBlackPhone'', ''Film/TalkToMe'' and ''[[WebVideo/CryptTV Mordeo]]'' Season 1, which have no Dull Machete awarded to any of the kills[[note]]While the latter does have a Dull Machete, it's not for any of the kills from the web series.[[/note]]. While one of the kills gets the Golden Chainsaw in each instance[[note]]all of them in ''Society'''s case[[/note]], James doesn't find any of the kills weak enough to award a Dull Machete and says all of the kills are really good, though in the case of ''Film/TheBlackPhone'', it was more James not wanting to penalise a child murder for being offscreen. |
| 52 | ** Due to the large numbers of infected wandering around in the third and fourth ''Film/{{REC}}'' movies, James admitted in their Kill Counts that he gave up on counting near the ends of the movies, stating that there was simply no way to tell if held previously counted them or not and just assumed he did by that point. |
| 53 | ** Similarly, ''Film/ZombielandDoubleTap'''s Kill Count was an ''absolute nightmare'' due to multiple mass killings in the dark. He asked the filmmakers, tried to use an AI program, just estimated, and then the editor just counted the best he could. |
| 54 | ** For ''Film/Tremors7ShriekerIsland'', Zoran gave the Dull Machete to every kill save one, due to all being derivative offscreen deaths. And that one exception, [[spoiler:[[TheHeroDies Burt's death]] at the climax,]] doesn't get the Golden Chainsaw either, since Zoran felt its execution lacked the emotional impact the movie was aiming for. |
| 55 | * BuffySpeak: During the kill count for ''[[Film/TheCollector2009 The Collection]]'', Zoran refers to the people that the Collector tortures as Screambies, since "They scream like idiots and act like zombies". |
| 56 | * TheCameo: |
| 57 | ** Creator/RogerLJackson reprises his role as Ghostface during the numbers section of the ''Film/Scream2022'' Kill Count. |
| 58 | ** Creator/MatPat appears to help James get to the numbers during the ''Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023'' Kill Count. |
| 59 | * {{Catchphrase}}: |
| 60 | ** "Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in all our favourite horror movies. I'm <host name here> and ''today'', we're looking at <movie title here> |
| 61 | ** "TITLE CARD!" |
| 62 | ** "Let's get to the numbers." |
| 63 | * CerebusSyndrome: A temporary and very well-received example. When Chelsea fills in for two weeks, she admits at the end of her second video that she can't quite match the "zany" energy of James and Zoran, and her videos are done in a noticeably more dry, serious academic (but still funny) style of delivery. Even her ''choice'' of movie is an example of this, as instead of the typical slashers and the like normally covered, she picked the far more complex and literary (well, at least the first film) ''Film/AmericanPsycho'' franchise as a topic. She herself lampshades this during the review, after a particularly brutal scene where Bateman insults and then stabs a poor homeless guy to death, she comments almost wistfully on the fact James typically gets to cover more outlandish and darkly comic things such as someone getting their flash-frozen head smashed (''Jason X'') or a woman's butt magically growing until it explodes (''Leprechaun 3.'') |
| 64 | * ColourCodedForYourConvenience: |
| 65 | ** The kill tally uses several colours to count victims; blue for males, red for females, grey for the undead or victims of unknown gender, and green for extra-terrestrials. |
| 66 | ** As the majority of the kills in the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' games were unmamed extras, James seperates the pie chart between them and named kharacters. With named kombatants being in yellow and background extras being in orange. |
| 67 | ** The Kill Counts for the ''Tremors'' films separately counted the various monsters and used its own color key for them -- orange for Graboids, blue for Shriekers, red for Ass-Blasters, green for Dirt Dragons, and yellow for Grabbers. |
| 68 | ** The Kill Count for ''Film/WillysWonderland'' followed the ''Tremors'' example by separately counting the living animatronics from human deaths, using purple for them. |
| 69 | ** In the ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' and ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'' Kill Counts, the Gremlins themselves are listed with a dark green. |
| 70 | ** In the ''Film/{{Critters}}'' Kill Counts, the Crites are listed in grey. |
| 71 | ** In the ''[[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc Danganronpa]]'' Kill Count, Chihiro is represented on the pie chart by a yellow wedge [[ViewerGenderConfusion to avoid any of the controversy around their gender]]. |
| 72 | * TheCommandments: [[TheCommandments/TheKillCount Has its own page.]] |
| 73 | * ContentWarnings: |
| 74 | ** James has edited in a tone to alert viewers with seizure issues when scenes with flashing lights that may cause seizures begin and end. ''Film/{{REC}}'' and ''Film/Quarantine2008'' have so many flashing lights that he couldn't keep putting the tone in the videos, so he simply advised photosensitive viewers to skip them altogether. |
| 75 | ** James has had to make some Kill Counts with censored film footage due to the graphic nature making his videos instant targets for demonetization. However, he really doesn't like to do this, and will usually release an explicit version alongside the censored one if he gets a sponsor deal to pay for it. |
| 76 | ** In the intro for the video of ''Film/PresidentsDay'', he noted that he was releasing a video about a SerialKiller in a high school not long after the Parkland shooting (the video was planned months in advance) and warned viewers to turn it off if they couldn't handle it so soon. |
| 77 | ** As of ''Film/TheInvisibleMan2020'', self-harm warnings are included. |
| 78 | * CouchGag: How James transitions from counting/summarizing the movie to revealing the numbers and declaring the "Golden Chainsaw" and "Dull Machete" awards. It's always different, and has something to do with the film in question. |
| 79 | * CuttingBackToReality: Used for the EnforcedPlug in the episode for [[Music/IceNineKills The Silver Scream]], which has a static transition to Chelsea as a psychiatrist trying (and failing, as James ignores her to talk about the sponsor) to talk to James about "delusions of [=YouTube=] fame." At the end of the sponsorship segment, the scene returns to the normal Kill Count set with a second burst of static. |
| 80 | * DeadUnicornTrope: In the ''Scream 2'' recount, James describes the BlackDudeDiesFirst trope as this, noting how it had become such a cliché of the horror genre that the film's opening parodied it even though, in his experience watching horror movies, there was never really much of a trend to the first victim's race. |
| 81 | * DenserAndWackier: As the series has gone on (''especially'' after Zoran joined the main crew), the kill count has had a lot more time for {{Brick Joke}}s, sponsor segments with plotlines, and portraying the Dead Meat crew as a CrazyWorkplace filled with hijinks. |
| 82 | * DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Very much averted when talking about movies where abuse happens to male characters, but especially in his video on ''Valentine'', where he is disgusted with Dorothy for making a FalseRapeAccusation. |
| 83 | * DudeNotFunny: While James doesn't mind if female characters die in horror movies, he does call out certain movies that use sexual exploitation, use them for sympathy points, or paint women as {{Straw Feminist}}s. |
| 84 | ** Does NOT enjoy the "girl is raped by the gimmick killer" 'gag' used in movies like ''Thankskilling'' and ''Jack Frost''. |
| 85 | ** He calls out ''Saw 3D'' on its excessive use of violent deaths for women, including one innocent woman who was burned alive in a brazen bull because her husband lied about being caught in one of Jigsaw's traps. |
| 86 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 87 | ** The earlier videos were more subdued in the number transitions and James possessed a different hairstyle and speaking tone. They also tended to be under twenty minutes on average, with James speaking more quickly and rarely discussing behind-the-scenes information for the movies in question. Over time, Kill Counts became longer and include more discussion about the films' production. Videos released after ''Film/SawI'' added a fair use disclaimer as well. In the ''Film/DemonicToys'' Kill Count, James calls back to it and points out how awful his hair looked back then. |
| 88 | ** James has admitted that his more subdued demeanor in the earliest Dead Meat videos compared to his excited and energetic presence in the later ones is due to his being able to get more sleep now that Dead Meat is his full-time job. When he was working a full-time job and making the videos as a hobby, he'd typically be much more burned out when he was filming them. |
| 89 | ** James lampshades this in the first two ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' Kill Counts, remarking on Jason not being the killer in the first film and his drastically different attire and appearance in the second. |
| 90 | * EarWorm: James notes how catchy the Banana Splits' theme song is. |
| 91 | * EqualOpportunityEvil: Part of the objective with the number breakdowns, which break down the kill numbers by gender, is to see if the deaths in a film follow this pattern. |
| 92 | * EvenTheGuysWantHim: |
| 93 | ** James has a rather fawning attitude towards two random patrons that resemble Music/DavidBowie in the S&M bar in the ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreetPart2FreddysRevenge'' Kill Count. |
| 94 | --->'''James:''' Sign me up! |
| 95 | ** He does it again in the ''Film/SeedOfChucky'' Kill Count when he mentions that Glen is "only one dilated pupil away" from looking just like David Bowie. He even goes as far as to call David "the sexiest man who has ever or will ever walk this earth". |
| 96 | ** He does this yet [[RuleOfThree again]] in the ''{{Film/Candyman}}'' Kill Count when the titular Candyman is first introduced, and he keeps gushing about his voice and good looks. |
| 97 | --->'''Candyman:''' ''Be my victim...''\ |
| 98 | '''James:''' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Not. A. Problem. Man.]] You don't have to ask me twice!\ |
| 99 | '''Candyman:''' ''Be. My victim...''\ |
| 100 | '''James:''' Yup, no, I'm all down for it, dude! How could anyone say no to you? |
| 101 | * EveryEpisodeEnding: At the end of each kill count, James shows a pie chart of the gender ratios for the kills, then gives out two awards: "Golden Chainsaw" for the coolest kill, and "Dull Machete" for the lamest kill. Finally, the host ends with "I'm James A. Janisse, and this has been the Kill Count." Also, right after a short spiel at the end of each video where James thanks his Patreon supporters, the last line of every video is "Be good people.". |
| 102 | ** Two awards were added on for his look at the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' series, "Platinum Punji Sticks" and "Rusty Mousetrap" for the best and worst trap in a movie, regardless of whether it killed someone or not. For the Kill Counts of ''Film/SawII'' through ''Film/Saw3D'', James also gives each movie a specialized subtitle to help distinguish them from each other. |
| 103 | ** For the ''[[Franchise/JurassicPark Jurassic Park/World]]'' franchise, he adds the "Diamond Dino" award for the best dinosaur moment in the franchise, regardless of whether it killed someone or not. |
| 104 | ** For the ''Franchise/FinalDestination'' series, he adds the "Primo Premonition" award for the best kill to happen in a premonition that doesn't actually occur. |
| 105 | ** Since ''Film/{{Krampus}}'' wasn't actually a Kill Count but a "Capture Count", the awards were changed to the "Golden Santa Sack" and the "Sour Candy Cane" for the best and worst captures respectively. |
| 106 | ** Beginning with his re-done ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' kill count he inaugurated the "Coolest Corpse" award, for the zombie he found the most interesting. |
| 107 | ** During the ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' kills counts, guest host Zoran counts the Graboid deaths separately from the human ones, and gives the "Burt's Hunting Trophy" award to whichever one he likes best. |
| 108 | ** During the ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'' recounts, James adds a "Champion Chuckle" award to whatever he feels is the most funny moment in each movie. |
| 109 | ** For the ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' and ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'' Kill Counts, James adds a "Golden Gremlin" medal for whichever Gremlin is coolest in each movie. |
| 110 | ** For the ''Film/{{Critters}}'' Kill Counts, Zoran awards the "Bounty Booty" medal to best Crite kill. |
| 111 | ** ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'' forgoes the pie chart, as all of the deaths were male with one exception (Scout's mother), so it instead shows a bar graph of how many times each class was killed. |
| 112 | * EveryoneHasStandards: [[{{EveryoneHasStandards/TheKillCount}} Has a whole subpage]]. |
| 113 | * FlawlessToken: Discussed in the kill count for ''12 Hour Shift'', James is a firm supporter of feminism and hates films that objectify women and treat them as sex objects. At the same time, he thinks films that portray women as flawless and messianic are equally problematic since they still [[HumansAreFlawed aren't portrayed as people]]. |
| 114 | -->'''James:''' I especially love that she wrote a movie with a predominantly female cast, and did so in a way that's truly feminist - just let women be people.\ |
| 115 | '''Brea Grant:''' We write these really great roles for women, but they're always, like, up on these pedestals. But I wanted to see a woman... have a lot of flaws. And all of the female characters have a lot of flaws. |
| 116 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 117 | ** Something of a blink-and-you'll-miss-it example in the kill count for ''Film/{{Mayhem}}''. In the film, the presence of the ID-7 virus is accompanied by characters [[CharacterTic rubbing at one of their eyes]]. James does the same thing while talking about the film, foreshadowing that the episode's CouchGag will involve him going crazy as if he were under its effects. |
| 118 | ** During the ''Film/{{Pontypool}} kill count, James protests against Grant's warning against affectionate terms, asking how he'll talk to his cat Lucy... [[TooDumbToLive who he describes using affectionate terms]]. Sure enough, the CouchGag has James getting infected by the movie's verbal virus. |
| 119 | ** Everything that James discovers in the "The Kill Count Gets Weird." video is this towards the upcoming [[FormulaBreakingEpisode formula-breaking episodes]]. He ends up finding [[VideoGame/MortalKombat2011 Mortal Kombat figurines]] outside the set, a [=PS1=] with a disk of ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' next to it, Zoran holding what looks like ''ComicBook/FreddyVsJasonVsAsh'' with distorted Music/IceNineKills playing, Chelsea wandering around [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc murmuring "it's punishment time" with a Monokuma plushie]] in hand, a playbill for ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', a computer showing [[Film/TheBlairWitchProject the missing posters of Heather, Josh and Mike]], a DVD of ''Film/{{Cronos}}'', and finally, he ends up [[WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared turning into a puppet]] at the end. The decorations on the set-dec also change from being based on ''Film/Terrifier2'' to being based on ''WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared'', all but stating that the latter one would be the first of the batch to be covered. |
| 120 | * FormulaBreakingEpisode: Thanks to the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, the kill count crew had to experiment with the formula to avoid going on hiatus. In addition to focusing only on indie flicks until the strike ends (avoiding movies from any big-name studios) they've decided to make video games, musicals, comic books, and even ''songs'' applicable for kill counts, with the list starting off with ''WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared'', a web series where nearly ALL the kills break the usual rules for the Kill Count. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'' is along the line thanks to it too, an ''animated fan film based on '''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'''''[[note]]While James has counted fan films such as ''Never Hike Alone'' and the ''Social Medasocist'' music videos by Zoran Gvojic of Low Carb Comedy fame, they were all based on various horror movies[[/note]]. |
| 121 | ** Speaking of ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'', since it was a ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' fan film made in Source Filmmaker, all of the "actors" were just [=TF2=] characters playing similar but ultimately different roles to their canon selves. In addition to this, none of the original voice actors for said characters reprised their roles, instead being voiced by relatively unknown [=VAs=]. This meant that James couldn’t tell his usual trivia about the actors or any behind-the-scenes stuff. Fortunately, James is a [=TF2=] fan himself, and he was able to provide trivia for the characters' in-game selves instead. |
| 122 | * FreezeFrameBonus: Invoked. James counts dead bodies shown in the background as kills, though he often laments that he has to go frame-by-frame to get an accurate count. |
| 123 | * FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: {{Discussed|Trope}}; after watching several Saw movies, James debated on whether or not Kramer still had good enough reasons for putting so many people through his death traps. James instead wondered if Kramer just had a crippling addiction to torturing people and used parts of his backstory to justify his killings and to pass on the blame to someone else. |
| 124 | * FunTShirt: James will, more often than not, wear a graphic T-shirt or costume referencing in some way the film he's covering in his Kill Counts. |
| 125 | * GagCensor: James loves to use them to cover up naked bodies and even made them match the theme of the movie, like the Necronomicon for the ''Franchise/EvilDead'' franchise or chainsaws for the ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' franchise. However, he had noted in a tweet that he will use regular blur censors if the gag censors take up too much screen space to be usable. |
| 126 | * GentlemanSnarker: He's very respectful towards women and very snarky towards mean-spirited characters. In ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacreTheBeginning'', after showing a clip of Marietta Marich complimenting Matthew Bomer's looks, James also comments how beautiful Marietta Marich looked when she was younger. |
| 127 | * GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: A variant in that after previously releasing a video covering ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' as part of the ''Friday the 13th'' Kill Counts, a version including tweaks was released to be in the ''A Nightmare On Elm Street'' Kill Count videos. |
| 128 | * GoryDiscretionShot: James discusses the effectiveness and varying usage of this trope, demonstrating very much how Administrivia/TropesAreTools in how he varies between praising and admonishing films that use it depending on its execution. He notes that good executions can be rather terrifying while poor examples can come across as underwhelming or cheap depending on how they are depicted. He's even awarded Golden Chainsaws and Dull Machetes to kills of this nature as a reflection of its variable nature. Deliberate examples may be praised, for example, but cases where the discretion was due to the original graphic kill footage being heavily censored always make him disappointed. |
| 129 | * GratuitousRape: Similar to unnecessary nudity and sex scenes, James doesn't like instances of this trope, and speaks out much more harshly against it. |
| 130 | * GroundhogDayLoop: The "let's get to the numbers" and outro segments in his ''Film/HappyDeathDay'' Kill Count. |
| 131 | * GuestHost: |
| 132 | ** With James taking the first half of 2022 off in order to focus on his wedding and health, Dead Meat editor Zoran takes over to host kill counts for the ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' franchise. He proved popular enough to later return to do ''Film/{{Slither}}'', ''Film/{{Deathgasm}}'', and ''Film/DudeBroPartyMassacre3'' as well, and in a March 2023 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FbthjBFmfY video,]] James announced that Zoran would be taking over again until June while James dealt with the death of his father, with Zoran covering ''Film/DeepRising'', ''Film/{{The Collector|2009}}'', ''Film/TheCollection'' and the ''Film/{{Critters}}'' series. |
| 133 | ** Chelsea also finally got in on things in 2022, covering ''Film/AmericanPsycho'' and [[Film/AmericanPsycho2AllAmericanGirl its sequel]]. She would later return to cover ''Film/BonesAndAll'' and ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc''. |
| 134 | * HeroicBSOD: James has a pretty big one (complete with multiple instances of a BigNo) at the end of the Kill Count for ''Film/Mandy2018'', when his replica of The Beast falls to the floor and snaps in half.[[note]]Thankfully, Legion M, who produced the film, were kind enough to ship him a replacement.[[/note]] |
| 135 | * HeroesLoveDogs: James seems to really like dogs, always referring to them as "good boys" and never showing their deaths. |
| 136 | * HomoeroticSubtext: Discussed in the ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreetPart2FreddysRevenge'' Kill Count, where this was a prominent part of the film. |
| 137 | * HollywoodHomely: In-universe. James discusses this trope in the ''Film/Leprechaun3'' Kill Count in regard to Loretta being portrayed as frumpy and past her prime. He notes that Caroline Williams doesn't look any less attractive than she was presented as in ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2'' ten years earlier. |
| 138 | * HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Invoked. James covers holiday-themed horror movies around the time of the holiday in the real world, releasing the Kill Counts in a timely fashion. |
| 139 | * HostileShowTakeover: |
| 140 | ** At the end of the [[WebVideo/CryptTV ''Mordeo'' Season 1]] Kill Count, James is temporarily taken out by one of the titular creatures after mistakenly eating human flesh he thought was beef jerky. As a result, the Mordeo delivers the numbers and awards in unintelligible screaming before James (sporting a nasty neck wound) shoos it away to do the outro. |
| 141 | ** At the end of the ''Film/Scream2022'' Kill Count, Ghostface (reprised by Creator/RogerLJackson) stabs and kills James before going over his victims and listing off his personal Golden Chainsaw and Dull Machete. |
| 142 | * HypocriticalHumor: James expresses annoyance at the fact that ''Film/ChildsPlay'' ended in a freeze-frame, only for the shot before he gets to the numbers to end in one itself. In fact, many of his segues to the numbers feature him being harmed by something he mocked or criticized in the film he just discussed. |
| 143 | * IdenticalStranger: In-universe. |
| 144 | ** James has trouble telling Sally and Louise apart in his Kill Count for ''Film/UncleSam''. |
| 145 | ** James is unable to tell the difference between Laura and Jerri in ''Film/SilentNightDeadlyNightIIIBetterWatchOut''. |
| 146 | * ImpossiblyCoolWeapon: Gives the Golden Chainsaw award to Leatherface's golden chainsaw in ''Film/LeatherfaceTheTexasChainsawMassacreIII'' since it's a literal golden chainsaw, despite not being used to successfully kill someone in the film. The kills in the movie were too cut down after production for anyone of them to be given the award, anyway. |
| 147 | * InstantTurnoff: James doesn't understand why people find infantile voices sexy, which he says during the Kill Counts for ''Leprechaun 3'' and ''Leprechaun Returns''. |
| 148 | * ItsTheSameNowItSucks: [[invoked]]James tends to be pretty critical towards remakes, reboots and etc. especially if they are way too similar to their source materials. Although at times he does also tend to criticize MythologyGags. As he himself states he really appreciates originality. |
| 149 | ** In his video on ''Film/Quarantine2008'', James goes into detail about how he doesn't like the movie for this reason, saying that the film is too much of a shot-for-shot remake that doesn't feel as real as ''Film/{{REC}}'' did. Notably, he praised the moments that the film added (in particular, the moment when the cameraman kills an infected ''with the camera'' and another moment when a man rips down the quarantine tarps only to be shot by the police outside) because he believed they were very creative additions, which made him wish there were more of them. |
| 150 | * {{Keet}}: James is a very cheerful, energetic guy who's almost always smiling. |
| 151 | * LOL69: In the count for ''Film/Tremors3BackToPerfection'', Josh counts the Shrieker corpses mowed down by Burt's anti-aircraft gun and comes to a total of 69. |
| 152 | --> '''Zoran''': How many did you kill? You know what? Don't answer that. We have editor Josh for situations just like this. Josh? |
| 153 | --> '''Josh''': [[ThisIsGoingToSuck Dammit.]] Alright, in this wide shot I counted 69 shriekers. Hehe, nice! |
| 154 | --> '''Zoran''': Oh, grow up, Josh! |
| 155 | * MadeMyselfSad: In ''Film/TheThing1982'', after [=MacReady=] shot Clark in self-defense, James was about to make a joke about who's going to watch the dogs, only to remember that the dogs are all dead and now he's sad. |
| 156 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: |
| 157 | ** Over the course of the ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'' Kill Counts, a Chucky doll prominently displayed in the background gradually emerges from its box, finally attacking James before he gets to the numbers for ''Film/CultOfChucky''. |
| 158 | --> '''James''': Oh god! [[Film/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter He's killing me! He's killing me!!]] |
| 159 | ** Also, in the ''Film/FinalDestination'' videos, the decorations on James’ shelf keep getting knocked down when the death related to them happens in the movie. |
| 160 | ** During, appropriately, the ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'' Kill Count, James slowly shaves more and more as the video goes on, starting the video with a full beard and ending it clean-shaven. |
| 161 | ** At the start of ''Literature/{{Christine}}'' Kill Count, the car in the background is broke with its parts open. But by the end of the video, the car's parts are all closed. |
| 162 | ** For ''Film/BasketCase'', the basket is the only thing visible on the shelf. Once we get to the part where Belial is revealed to the audience, the case is turned over, revealing Belial inside. |
| 163 | * MedalOfDishonor: |
| 164 | ** The "Dull Machete," which goes to a film's least-interesting kill. It usually goes to someone who dies by gunshot (since James considers gun deaths "lame"), someone who dies of natural causes, or someone who dies offscreen. If the kills are strong enough, this award might be skipped over altogether or (more commonly) have James make a point that the kill only falls under this trope by default. |
| 165 | ** Both ''Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part III'' and ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation'' got no Golden Chainsaw award, since James felt all of the deaths lacked effort, adding "I don't award movies that don't try." |
| 166 | ** Exaggerated for ''I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer'' where the entire film gets the Dull Machete, except for one kill that James especially liked. |
| 167 | ** Zoran got to join in with ''Film/Tremors7ShriekerIsland'', giving all of the off-screen deaths the Dull Machete, and feeling the one on-screen death ([[spoiler:Burt Gummer]]) wasn't worth giving the Golden Chainsaw. |
| 168 | * MenAreTheExpendableGender: A lot of the kill count numbers have male victims outnumber the female victims. |
| 169 | * MoodWhiplash: A major complaint James has towards ''Film/TheBelkoExperiment'' is that the BlackComedy of James Gunn's script heavily contrasts with the serious direction from Greg [=McLean=]. |
| 170 | * MrFanservice: James isn't exactly shy about providing the odd bit of shirtlessness. |
| 171 | ** His ''Film/WolfCreek'' Kill Count is sponsored by Dr Squatch and has a sequence of James getting hosed down and washing himself in his garden. |
| 172 | ** His "lets get to the numbers" transition for ''Film/TheWolfMan1941'' has him ripping his shirt open, and doing the numbers with it in that condition. |
| 173 | ** He does the "numbers" segment of ''Film/TheTerminator'' [[NakedPeopleAreFunny naked]] due to doing the transition in the form of the movie's form of time travel. |
| 174 | * MyFriendsAndZoidberg: |
| 175 | ** By ''Leprechaun: Back to tha' Hood'', James is getting a little tired of the franchise, and his intro expresses this. (In his ''Leprechaun Returns'' episode, James does admit that he's since come around to "the little shit".) |
| 176 | ---> '''James:''' Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in ''all'' our favourite horror movies...and also the ''Leprechaun'' ones. |
| 177 | ** Comes up again as he gets further into the ''Film/WrongTurn'' series and is increasingly tired of the series slide into cheap sleaze. |
| 178 | ---> '''James:''' Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in ''all'' our favorite horror movies...and the Film/WrongTurn series. (For ''Film/WrongTurn5Bloodlines'') |
| 179 | ---> '''James:''' Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in all the ''Film/WrongTurn'' movies. (For ''Film/WrongTurn6LastResort'') |
| 180 | * {{Narm}}: [[InvokedTrope In his opinion]], the premonition deaths in ''Film/FinalDestination4'' come across as this. They are so badly done that he refers to the people involved as "cartoon characters". |
| 181 | * NegativeContinuity: Often, James will be killed before he gets to the numbers. Never seems to keep him down very long, as he's always just fine the following video. |
| 182 | * NeckSnap: James tends to find this kind of kill lazy and unimaginative. If there's one in a movie, odds are that it'll be the Dull Machete recipient. |
| 183 | * NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead: James makes a point of noting during the count of ''Film/HannibalRising'' that while he detests Creator/GaspardUlliel's portrayal of Hannibal Lecter and says he comes off as a "tryhard edgelord" (especially compared to Creator/AnthonyHopkins' iconic portrayal of Lecter as a WickedCultured [[TheSocialExpert Social Expert]]), he feels weird ragging on his performance too much because Ulliel tragically died in a bike accident in 2022 and he doesn't want to seem like he's making fun of a dead guy. |
| 184 | * NightmareFetishist: It's a channel dedicated to deaths in horror media; James naturally falls into this. He frequently compliments creative deaths or cool-looking gore effects. |
| 185 | * NoJustNoReaction: He bluntly refuses to put Emmett Till[[note]]An actual 14-year-old African American boy lynched in 1955[[/note]] on the Count for ''Film/TalesFromTheHood2'' with this justification. |
| 186 | * NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: |
| 187 | ** At one point during the ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' kill count, Zoran mentions an episode of the [[Series/{{Tremors}} TV series]] featuring a prehistoric shrimp monster, and then clarifies that he's not making that up. |
| 188 | ** At the start of the ''Film/WinnieThePoohBloodAndHoney'' kill count, James says that the film[[note]]A horror movie based on ''Franchise/WinnieThePooh''[[/note]] is actually real. |
| 189 | * ObligatoryJoke: At the end of the ''Film/SilentNight2012'' kill count, after James ends up being [[KillItWithFire burned alive]] by the killer Santa and [[StrippedToTheBone left as a skeleton]], [[Franchise/MortalKombat Dan Forden]] pops up on the right side and yells "TOASTY!" |
| 190 | * OhCrap: |
| 191 | ** James' reaction whenever a character uses a smoke grenade or something to block the view of a group killing, creating much more guesswork for him as to how many people got killed. He [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this during the ''Film/TheFirstPurge'' Kill Count. |
| 192 | --> '''James''': Oh no, a smoke grenade! [[LampshadeHanging How am I supposed to count these kills when I can't even see 'em?]] |
| 193 | ** During the trailer for the ''Film/HellraiserIIIHellOnEarth'' Kill Count, James is so clearly dreading having to cover the nightclub massacre scene that when it gets mentioned, he breaks character (having been narrating the trailer in an imitation of Pinhead's voice) in order to freak out about it. |
| 194 | ** James has one on Website/{{Twitter}} when he sees just how many he would have to count in the final chapter of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat1'' for a potential kill count. |
| 195 | * OminousVisualGlitch: Happens towards the end of the Kill Count for ''Film/UnfriendedDarkWeb'': first, during the transition to the numbers, and then during said numbers, when James mentions the hacker of unknown gender and his voice and the figure representing them glitch out for an instant. |
| 196 | * TheOneThingIDontHateAboutYou: No matter how much James hates a particular movie, he likes to draw attention to movie team and he'll praise directors who cared about their product and took responsibility for the people under their command. Although James hates ''Jason Takes Manhattan'', he praised Rob Hedden's appreciation for the franchise since he kept the set free of drugs, kept a healthy atmosphere, listened to Kane Hodder's suggestions for Jason, and he put the cast and crews safety first by refusing to break overtime laws. Rob Hedden also went nude after Sharlene Martin expressed her anxiety about being naked for a film, an act that Sharlene appreciated. |
| 197 | * OneTruePairing:[[invoked]] |
| 198 | ** James wants to see Leo Barnes and Charlie Roan from the movie ''Film/ThePurgeElectionYear'', end up together. In that same video, he revealed that he ships Sawyer and Juliet from ''Series/{{Lost}}'' as well. |
| 199 | ** James also openly ships Lex and Scar in the ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' Kill Count, with most of the team up between the two having James gushing about how much he likes the two working together. |
| 200 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: |
| 201 | ** He was really miserable during the ''I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer'' Kill Count. James barely had any energy, skipping right over his usual intro of information by just saying "this movie fucking sucks". He later confirmed that ''I'll Always Know'' is his most hated horror movie of all time. |
| 202 | ** He was even more miserable during the Kill Count for ''Film/{{Thankskilling}} 3''. He couldn't even get through his usual intro before he started tearing the film apart and saying that he was only covering it because people wouldn't stop leaving comments asking him to do it. At the end, he doesn't say "let's get to the numbers", but "let's get this shit over with" and walking off without the usual CouchGag. |
| 203 | * OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope: Nudity and/or really nasty gore effects get censored with blur effects. James frequently lampshades it, saying he doesn't want to get in trouble with [=YouTube=] over violent or sexual content, so he compromises with the censorship. |
| 204 | * PantyShot: A couple crop up in the ''[[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc Danganronpa]]'' Kill Count. Chelsea jokes that for all James knows the entire game is just upskirts of anime girls... [[HypocriticalHumor right before pulling up her own skirt.]] |
| 205 | * PinkIsErotic: For the episode on ''Film/Revenge2017'', James decorates the background with pink and wears a pink t-shirt as he covers the rape-revenge movie and discusses the topic of sexual assault. He even uses a pink star to cover Richard's genitals in the third act. |
| 206 | * PrecisionFStrike: James is no stranger to this word and others in the Kill Counts, just as he's no stranger to being a cheerful host to the viewers, ending each video with an earnest "Be good people." However, he has a special message to anyone who was clicking their tongue in the theater for ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'': "Fuck you!" |
| 207 | * PungeonMaster: James never hesitates to make puns if he's able, and even lampshades this in the ''Film/PresidentsDay'' Kill Count: |
| 208 | --> '''James''': Hope y'all like presidential puns and political jokes, because I've been training my whole goddamn life for this video! |
| 209 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: James absolutely ''hates'' any tasteless depiction of sexual assault. |
| 210 | ** In ''Film/LeatherfaceTheTexasChainsawMassacreIII'' James is appalled and disturbed by the implication of Leatherface being the [[ChildByRape father of the creepy child]][[note]]"You don't need that additional depravity, man. The Sawyers already eat people, that's bad enough."[[/note]]. |
| 211 | ** In the kill count for ''Film/HappyDeathDay'', he voices his respect towards Carter for not taking advantage of Tree while she was drunk the other night. James tells his audience that Carter is a "righteous horror character to emulate". |
| 212 | ** Similarly, James states outright that he's very uncomfortable with the lengthy rape scene in ''Film/TheDevilsRejects'' and states that he judges anyone who thinks the character who commits it is cool in any way. This is also part of what cements his negative opinion of the Firefly family. |
| 213 | * RealMenWearPink: In the kill count of "[[Film/ShaunOfTheDead Shaun of the Dead]]", James states that he recognizes Matt Lucas from ''Film/{{Bridesmaids}}'' and ''Series/TheGreatBritishBakeOff''. In general, James isn't afraid to show his feminine side and have fun making the kill counts. |
| 214 | * RefugeInAudacity: The reason he awards the Golden Chainsaw to the Leprechaun bursting out of a man's penis for ''Film/Leprechaun4InSpace'', as it was part of the director's pitch that got the film greenlit. |
| 215 | * RetroactiveRecognition: Invoked, James has a habit of doing this when actors who are better known for later work show up, and will inevitably joke about it. |
| 216 | * RhymingWithItself: In "The Kill Count Song" from the ''Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' episode rhymes "know" with "know" and "up" with "up": |
| 217 | -->'''Puppet James''': There are rules you need to know know\ |
| 218 | When you want to count kills up!\ |
| 219 | '''Zoran''': Yes, what rules must I know?\ |
| 220 | '''Puppet James''': I'll tell you if you ''[[BigShutUp shut the fuck up!]]'' |
| 221 | * RootingForTheEmpire: InUniverse, James admits that he's rooting for [[HeWhoFightsMonsters Sheriff Wydell]] in ''Film/TheDevilsRejects'', as the attempt to parallel him with the Firefly family falls flat since all the evil he commits is against them, and James openly admits he wants them dead ''just that badly'', since they're vile rapists, murderers, and torturers despite being [[VillainProtagonist the protagonists]]. While he's not outright rooting for the Black Satans in [[Film/ThreeFromHell the next film]], he is still disappointed at the fact the Firefly family beats them handily and walks away [[KarmaHoudini without facing ''any'' comeuppance for their crimes]]. |
| 222 | * RuleOfFunny: James has cited this on occasion as to why certain kills are not counted or looked over because no commentary or jokes could be offered. Related to... |
| 223 | * RuleOfFun: James has made it clear the Kill Counts are supposed to be fun first and foremost, which is why he occasionally points this out to discourage people from taking it too seriously. |
| 224 | * RunningGag: [[{{RunningGag/TheKillCount}} James has a whole page's worth of them.]] |
| 225 | * SafeSaneAndConsensual: Discussed. In the kill count for ''[[Film/{{X2022}} X]]'', James wanted to address the misconception that he's completely against nudity and sex scenes in movies. James explains that he's not against either of those things as long as the actors and actresses are safe and comfortable with what they're consenting to, even stating how happy he is that movies are including intimacy coordinators as part of a production team [[note]] a staff member who ensures the well-being of actors who participate in sex scenes or other intimate scenes in theater, film and television production.[[/note]]. |
| 226 | * TheScrappy:[[invoked]] |
| 227 | ** James ''utterly loathes'' Jeff ("Slow Ass Mothafuckin' Jeff") from ''Film/SawIII'' for being way too slow to save people - and the one guy Jeff does save, he ''accidentally kills him minutes later''. There's even a [[https://teespring.com/slow-ass-jeff?tsmac=store&tsmic=dead-meat&pid=2&cid=578 "Slow Ass Mothaf*kin Jeff Memorial Walkathon"]] ("never actually happened because it took everyone too long to get there") T-shirt in the official Dead Meat merch store! |
| 228 | -->'''James:''' He's killed more people than Jigsaw! |
| 229 | ** James is also not too fond of the Film/{{Leprechaun}}, to the point that he refers to him as "Little Shit". Though he has since grown fonder of him, especially after finding Film/LeprechaunOrigins even less favorable. |
| 230 | * ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: James often bends the rules for Kill Counts in one way or another, and often [[LampshadedTrope lampshading]] his tendency to do so. |
| 231 | --> '''James:''' Oh, I guess [[Film/SleepawayCampIIUnhappyCampers Angela's]] playing by [[Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway Whose Line]] slash {{Calvinball}} slash Kill Count rules, they're not that important! |
| 232 | * SelfDeprecation: |
| 233 | ** During his Kill Count for Season 2 of ''[[WebVideo/CryptTV ''The Look-See]]'', James refers to Raymond (the character that James himself played) as "a Gordon Hayward-looking jackass", asks if he watches too many horror movies or something, and says how James Capshaw could have taken him easily in the Dull Machete for the lamest kill. |
| 234 | ** James himself is awarded the Dull Machete at the end of the ''Mordeo'' Kill Count, by getting his throat ripped out by a Mordeo after accidentally eating human flesh. |
| 235 | ** He compares himself to Film/FreddyVsJason character Linderman. Said character berates Kia for wearing too much makeup and apparently that's what James would say in his youth. |
| 236 | --> '''Linderman:''' You tear me down to make yourself feel better because you really hate yourself, which is kinda pathetic when you think about it. Assuming of course you CAN think with all that makeup weighing down your head. |
| 237 | --> '''James:''' Ok, that does sound like something I would have said in high school verbatim. Damn... don't be a Linderman. Or a high school me... |
| 238 | * ShareTheMalePain: When Kendall [[spoiler:suddenly gets his crotch clawed out]] at the end of ''Pieces,'' James is horrified and holds his own in sympathy while walking off to the numbers. |
| 239 | * ShipperOnDeck: James often theorises that certain characters are gay due to the way they interact with each other. In ''Jason Lives'', he speculates that Stan and Larry are a gay couple and in ''A New Beginning'' he makes a similar comment about the two greasers fixing their car. |
| 240 | * ShownTheirWork: James often goes into the details of a film's production, giving trivia and shouting out members of the production who may be obscure or less discussed because they worked on areas with less publicity. He'll also bring attention to negative or problematic aspects of production and call them out, which also requires background research. It leads to James using an updated opening catchphrase, "Where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies and show ya how they were made!" |
| 241 | * ShutUpHannibal: In the ''Saw'' movies, this is James' attitude towards Jigsaw, having none of his claims of "not being a murderer" and frequently calling him out as the monster he is. |
| 242 | * SigningOffCatchphrase: James typically ends videos by saying "Be good people." |
| 243 | * SkewedPriorities: In the CouchGag of ''Upgrade'' James is taken over by Stem just as he is about to talk about his sponsors. James' response is to say that he needs sponsors to buy Lucy, his cat, food rather then the fact he has been taken over by an AI. |
| 244 | * SoBadItsGood: |
| 245 | ** In-universe, this is James' rationale for giving both the Golden Chainsaw ''and'' the Dull Machete to Rick's EyeScream in ''Film/FridayThe13thPartIII'', due to the obvious mannequin head. |
| 246 | ** James loves the first ''Film/{{Thankskilling}}'' movie because of this. He notes that the movie was trying to aim for this and succeeded, since it had NoBudget and the actors knew what kind of movie it was. As such, there were several moments that made him legitimately laugh, and for all the movie's faults, he had a really good time with it. |
| 247 | ** James eventually warmed up to the ''Leprechaun'' franchise, considering it to be this as time went on. He even didn't give out a "Dull Machete" for ''Leprechaun Returns'', since all of the deaths were so creative that he didn't feel right giving a MedalOfDishonor to the film. |
| 248 | * SoundtrackDissonance: He criticizes ''Film/TheBelkoExperiment'' for this when a massacre is accompanied by jovial music, as the scene is lacking the BlackComedy he felt was required to pull it off. |
| 249 | * SparedByTheCut: One of James's rules for the kill count is that he won't count characters who disappear from the movie without any explanation. Deleted scenes that show how a character dies must be implemented into the film in order to be counted, as they may have been spared or they may have been able to escape. [[invoked]] |
| 250 | * SpecialEffectsFailure: In-universe, James points out instances of this trope that are particularly appalling/humorous. In particular, he takes ''Film/Leprechaun4InSpace'' to task for its CGI. |
| 251 | * SpoiledByTheFormat: [[invoked]] Kills are instantly accompanied by text and a tally, plus a brief description of how the character died, flashing onscreen, officially adding a character to the count. If a character looks to have been killed but no text pops up on-screen, they're actually alive. James will lampshade this later when the character turns up again, noting that the audience probably realized they weren't added to the count. Averted in ''The Look-See (Season 1)'' and ''Film/ScreamVI'' Kill Counts, though, to keep the suspense, where a kill is retracted after it was added when the victim turns out to be alive. In other cases, James will outright clarify the status by mentioning right there and then that the character didn't really die, or mentioning this as the reason for why a group of victims is missing one of the members on the count. |
| 252 | * StrawFeminist: James holds misandristic women to the same standard of misogynistic men and voices his dislike for the leads in 2001's ''Valentine''. James also discussed the trope in the Dead Meat Podcast episode "Final Girl" in response to the accusations of him being a straw feminist as well, he states that he's not biased towards men. In horror movies, characters are just characters and how they die is what affects representation; male characters are more likely to die but get quick strikes, whereas, women get deaths that are more drawn out and excruciating. Female characters also get derogatory slurs thrown at them because of their sex, while men don't usually receive slurs at all. |
| 253 | * TakeThat: |
| 254 | ** The ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' version of the ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' Kill Count has James talking about Blake's father, an Alex Jones lookalike, and he absolutely refuses to mince words about Jones, sarcastically lamenting what Blake would do "with all that Info Wars money" and stating that Blake's father would "spread conspiracies about all those kids getting killed", capping the whole thing off with: |
| 255 | ---> '''James''': Because that's what Alex Jones does, he's a bad man. |
| 256 | ** James doesn't mince words when it comes to the Weinstein brothers. |
| 257 | *** The ''Film/{{Predators}}'' Kill Count has him mention that the titular aliens are not to be confused with sexual predators such as Harvey Weinstein. |
| 258 | *** In his recount of the first ''Film/{{Scream}}'' movie, he is thoroughly annoyed at how the brothers are a part of the movie's DNA, such as Bob specifically creating iconic name and choosing the release date, dropping a ClusterFBomb. |
| 259 | ---> '''James''': I fucking hate that these fucks are part of the movie's DNA. In my research I kept having to see the same picture of that nasty ogre and his fuckhead brother. It was gross. |
| 260 | ** Upon noticing a poster for Music/DavidBowie's album ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' during the ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreetPart2FreddysRevenge'' kill count, James snarks about ''Tonight'' being "a [[AudienceAlienatingEra bottom three]] Bowie album - bottom two if you don't count ''Music/TinMachineAlbum''". |
| 261 | ** In his kill count for ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2003'', James lightly insults Creator/MichaelBay by referencing Bay's style of using unnecessary fanservice. As the protagonist, Erin gets wet twice during the movie while wearing a white top, James comments that Creator/JessicaBiel must be freezing while doing the scene. James also states that Bay must have given her the role after she washed his car [[labelnote:?]] Referencing the story about Michael Bay forcing Creator/MeganFox to clean his car as he recorded her so she could get a role in the Film/{{Transformers|2007}}'' movie[[/labelnote]]. |
| 262 | ** In the recount of ''Film/FridayThe13th2009'', after mentioning how many seasons of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' Creator/JaredPadalecki had been through by then, James proceeds to joke about the show’s status as a LongRunner. |
| 263 | --> '''James''': Four seasons of, like, what? 32? 33? |
| 264 | ** In the first ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' kill count, Zoran mentions how Syfy passed on a 2018 spinoff TV series, then proceeds to list all the shows Syfy ''did'' make that year, all of which got cancelled after a single season. |
| 265 | ** The fake ad for [[Film/AmericanPsycho Dorsia]] states that it "caters only to the highest clientele... and Creator/JaredLeto." |
| 266 | ** In the ''Film/Scream2022'' kill count, it's pretty clear based on a joke Film Fail Counter that the film's in-universe Film Fails channel is supposed to be riff on ''WebVideo/CinemaSins''. |
| 267 | ** During the ''Film/{{Critters}}'' Kill Counts, Zoran makes it clear how much he hates and will never cover ''WebVideo/CrittersANewBinge'', to the point that in ''Critters Attack!'' he tries to wipe it from his memory. |
| 268 | ** In the ''Bones and All'' Kill Count, Chelsea takes a shot at Creator/ArmieHammer's scandals, joking that working with him on ''Film/CallMeByYourName'' probably gave the director the experience necessary to do a film about cannibals. |
| 269 | ** James makes it clear from the get go in his Kill Count for ''Film/WinnieThePoohBloodAndHoney'' that he hates the movie, for the execution of its general concept, its plot hole-ridden script, and terrible costume designs. |
| 270 | * TankTopTomboy: Lampshaded in the kill count for ''Film/TheBananaSplitsMovie'', where he says that the heroine Beth "turns into Hot Action Star Mom" after she takes off her sweater to reveal she's wearing a tank top underneath. |
| 271 | * TheyKilledKennyAgain: James himself has been killed several times during the transition to the numbers. |
| 272 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: James' reaction whenever a film has a wide or sweeping shot full of dead bodies and/or random RedShirts getting killed, mostly because it means he'll have to go frame by frame counting everyone. |
| 273 | ** ''Film/ThePurge'' series is by far the worst offender, and James will more or less always groan or complain whenever one of the films does so. |
| 274 | ** Special mention should also go to [[spoiler:''Film/{{Us}}'', when it turns out that the Tethered's extermination plan goes nationwide]], which provoked lots of irritation for James whenever an aboveground shot shows dozens of corpses at a time. |
| 275 | --> '''James:''' Oh shit! Are those a bunch of background bodies? Start the fucking Purge counting engines, I guess. |
| 276 | ** This is also precisely why he said in his podcast episode covering ''Film/GhostShip'' that he will never do a Kill Count for it, as the way the massacre scene in that film is shot would make it practically impossible for him to get a proper victim count. |
| 277 | ** Similarly, he set a precedent when he covered ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' of not putting Engineers on the count because the next movie would've been literally impossible to correctly count in ''Film/AlienCovenant'' if he did. As it turns out that the Engineers meet all his rules later on in the movie, he repeatedly points out that he is literally only doing it to give himself an easier time. |
| 278 | ** He has an especially bad time with ''Film/ZombielandDoubleTap'', which contains '''[[RuleOfThree three]]''' scenes of mass zombie killings in the dark in rapid succession of each other during the climax. |
| 279 | ** In a non-counting related example, at the beginning of the ''Film/IllAlwaysKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' Kill Count, instead of doing the usual intro of explaining the background of the movie and giving his personal opinion on it, James instead starts and ends the intro on one sentence. |
| 280 | --> '''James''': [[TranquilFury This movie fucking sucks.]] |
| 281 | ** When announcing in a livestream that he'll be covering the ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' movies, James made it clear that he's not looking forward to counting the huge numbers of Gremlin deaths in [[Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch the second one]]. |
| 282 | ** In the first ''Film/{{Critters}}'' Kill Count, Zoran makes it clear that he will be counting the Crites' deaths on a separate scale like he did with the Graboids in the ''Tremors'' films... and immediately regrets it when he realizes how many there'll be to count in ''Critters 2''. |
| 283 | * TranquilFury: In his Kill Count for ''Film/IllAlwaysKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'', James is noticeably burnt out from this movie since he utterly despises it and is 110% done with the movie's plot and acting. He doesn't even bother introducing the movie and just wants to get the episode over and done with. |
| 284 | * UncertainDoom: Discussed and zig-zagged. Since a number of characters may or may not survive their fates in horror movies, James usually doesn't count it as a kill if someone is left in a situation where death is likely but not certain (such as falling off a cliff). The few times he does count it is when a character has been gravely wounded before being left to such a fate, since James assumes that the character won't be able to get help before succumbing to their injuries. |
| 285 | * UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: |
| 286 | ** InUniverse, James' central issue with ''Film/TheDevilsRejects'' and especially ''Film/ThreeFromHell'' is that the Firefly family simply isn't sympathetic. They're brutal murderers, rapists, and torturers beyond even standard horror villains, and he notes that no matter how Rob Zombie meant to portray them, he is absolutely ''never'' going to want to see anything but their just comeuppance. Part of why ''Film/ThreeFromHell'' is so much worse to him is that, after getting said comeuppance in the previous entry, the Firefly family improbably survive and are treated as cool "protagonists" from there on out despite being absolute ''monsters''. |
| 287 | ** Another InUniverse example, to James, is [[Franchise/{{Saw}} Jigsaw]]; he never hesitates to call Jigsaw out on being a sadistic murderer and describes his code of ethics as "condescending," even asking if he honestly had a FreudianExcuse or if he just enjoys torturing people. |
| 288 | * UnsettlingGenderReveal: Discussed in the ''[[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc Danganronpa]]'' Kill Count. Chihiro's [[DisguisedInDrag gender identity]] is impossible to not talk about since it's evidence in a trial, but it's aged poorly in the years since release and the Kill Count isn't the right place to unpack all the controversy around it. Chelsea TakesAThirdOption and refers to Chihiro with they/them pronouns for the rest of the count, and their wedge on the pie chart is yellow. |
| 289 | * ValuesDissonance: In-universe, James points out egregious cases of these in films, such as taking issue with the portrayal of a transgender character in ''Film/LeprechaunInTheHood''. |
| 290 | * VindicatedByHistory: [[invoked]] |
| 291 | ** James hated ''Film/FridayThe13thPartVANewBeginning'' in the initial Kill Count of the film but in the recount he's stated that it's now one of his favourites. |
| 292 | ** James hated ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' in its initial kill counts, but by the time of the recount, he has grown to kind of like it. |
| 293 | ** James considered ''Film/Scream3'' the worst of the franchise in it’s initial kill count, but in its recount he now considers it this favourite ''Scream'' sequel. |
| 294 | * VisualPun: In his kill count for ''Film/HappyDeathDay'', when James gets to the numbers, all of Tree's deaths are represented by a tree icon. |
| 295 | * VoiceOfTheLegion: James ends up speaking like this before he gets to the numbers in the kill counts of ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'' as he imitates a Deadite and in ''Film/DemonicToys'' as he speaks as though he's a demon. |
| 296 | * WaxingLyrical: James does this occasionally. |
| 297 | * WhatMeasureIsAHumanoid: Alien deaths in the series are counted by how humanoid they resemble. He won't count xenomorphs since they are more insectoid and animalistic, whereas, the Yautja (Predators) are counted on the list because they display more human-like qualities in behavior and physiology. He probably would have counted the [[Film/{{Prometheus}} Engineers]]. But... [[Film/AlienCovenant they go extinct.]] So he didn't wanna cover the death of a race that actually dies on-screen. |
| 298 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: As noted under EveryoneHasStandards, James leaves animals off the kill count. He also flip flops on having robots and other non-humans being included, usually putting them on if they are sentient (Such as [[Franchise/{{Predator}} Yautja]] and [[Film/ChildsPlay Chucky in doll form]]) and leaving them off if they are sufficiently non-sentient/human (Such as [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorphs]] and most zombies). |
| 299 | * WrongAssumption: In the Banana Splits Kill Count, he’s originally a fan of Stevie, until he finds out Stevie is considered TheScrappy in-universe and is a HateSink out of it. |
| 300 | * YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: In the ''Film/DeepRising'' video, this is Zoran's reaction to seeing the movie's CorruptCorporateExecutive wielding a ''double-barreled flare gun''. |
| 301 | -->'''Zoran''': Why is that even a thing?! Is it for when your ship is ''extra'' sinking? |
| 302 | * YourHeadASplode: |
| 303 | ** James suffers this courtesy of an off-screen Predator in the ''Film/Predator2'' outro and after showing off a shot of a man being shot in the head in ''Film/{{Thankskilling}}''. |
| 304 | ** Head explosions are often ranked amongst the Golden Chainsaw kills; examples include [[spoiler:Rick]] in ''Film/FridayThe13thPartIII'', [[spoiler:John Strode]] in ''Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers'', [[spoiler:Leslie Todd]] in ''Film/ChoppingMall'', and [[spoiler:Dr. Sartain]] in ''Film/Halloween2018''. |
| 305 | ---- |
| 306 | ->''"And that's it! TV Tropes was founded in 2004, and has since gone on to [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife ruin the lives]] of many denizens of the Internet. I'll be back next week to see how many tropes [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} that other wiki]] has. But until then, I'm James A. Janisse... ''(nods)'' this has been The Kill Count."''\ |
| 307 | \ |
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