YMMV / The Kill Count

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• Adorkable: James A. Janisse. His fondness for silly jokes and genuine enthusiasm about horror movies make him this for sure.
• Awesome Music: Slow Shock by Silent Partner, which plays during his tally of the Kills for each episode.
• Bizarro Episode: Invoked and Defied. In the Critters 4 KILL COUNT, it seems like James' dog Molly will host the Kill Count instead of Zoran. Cue Zoran saying that this is way too silly, even for a Zoran Kill Count.
  • To avoid promoting struck materials during the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, the Kill Count branched out into media like video games, web series, and music. The first of that series, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, is fully out of the show's original concept and throws out a lot of existing Kill Count rules to make it work. The video even lampshades how weird of a choice it is in the numbers transition.
    Puppet James: We only count humanoids, not animals or creatures! [...]
    Zoran: Wait, Puppet James, didn't you just count a butterfly a few minutes ago? In this very episode?
    Puppet James: Yup!
    Zoran: Doesn't that break your own rules?
    Puppet James: These rules are for regular episodes. This one is fuckin' weird!
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Occasionally during the numbers summation for each film, the male and female figure graphics will be cartoonishly mutilated in the same way the characters they represented died, even though the purpose is only to show a gender breakdown and thus being able to identify the characters the figures represent is unnecessary.
  • During the Hereditary kill count, James' response to Annie's anguished screams as she finds Charlie's decapitated body in her car is a nonchalant "So, uh...you still gonna get that balsa wood, or?"
  • In the Kill Count for Fear Street Part 1: 1994, his response to Peter's death is "Thank You Peter". In the context of the movie, this interrupted an argument between Deena and Sam, which he found rather boring.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • James ended his Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter kill count with a joke about Corey Feldman's career dying... then later in 2017, it was revealed that Feldman had been blacklisted by Hollywood for calling out its toxic nature. James would come to consider this joke an Old Shame.
  • James quips in the Predators Kill Count that the aliens are not to be confused with sexual predators. A week before the sequel The Predator was released, controversy arose when it turned out an actual sexual predator was in the film as a minor character and was cut upon his past being discovered.
  • During the Kill Count for Chopping Mall, James brings up another film featuring Dick Miller, A Bucket of Blood, and asks viewers if they'd be interested in a Kill Count for it. Almost two weeks after this video aired, Dick Miller died, leading James to make a Kill Count for the film in memorial to him, even going so far as to open with the extended Dead Meat intro (which has a line spoken by Miller).
  • During the Kill Count for The Predator, James criticizes the anticlimactic death of the character played by Alfie Allen, and comments: "We will see if Theon Greyjoy [the character played by Allen in Game of Thrones] will have a better ending later this year". A month later, the final season of Game of Thrones was aired and Theon also died.
  • Hearing James talk about his inability to post his Willy's Wonderland kill count due to the possibility of a copyright strike can be hard to hear as his Train to Busan kill count led to the channel getting its first ever strike.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • James ends almost every kill count, which features people getting killed or otherwise dying horribly, with the line "be good people".
  • During the end card of the Bride of Re-Animator Kill Count, he happily announced that he and his girlfriend Chelsea are now engaged! Naturally, the comment section is filled with congratulations for them.
  • Doubling as a Moment of Awesome, in the Ranking video of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, James reveals that he and Chelsea have become good friends with Heather Langenkamp over the last few years, so much so that they asked her to officiate their wedding, to which she agreed.
  • A small moment is when James takes a quick aside at the end of his Thankskilling 3 review to tell the viewers he's playing up his anger for the camera and that he isn't actually that mad at the fans for requesting it. Veers back into funny territory when he reiterates his hatred for the movie itself is completely genuine.
  • While James was focussing on his upcoming wedding with Chelsea, he left the duty of hosting the Kill Count to Zoran. On the first video covering Tremors, the comments have been filled with positive feedback, with a majority saying that they felt that Zoran was an excellent substitute for James, and some even hoping that Zoran could continue hosting Kill Counts even when James returns.
  • In a similar vein, Chelsea's reviews of the American Psycho films have been incredibly well-received, with some fans even asking that when James returns, he and Chelsea split the hosting duties.
  • Crosses over with Tearjerker, but James opens the Kill Count for President's Day warning viewers about how the murders of students may strike a nerve due to the then-recent Parkland shooting and putting up a national helpline number. He then signs off by somberly reciting his phrase "Be good people".
  • Before the start of the Kill Count on Frogs, James formally introduces the audience to Molly, a dog he inherited from his dad after his passing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the Kill Count for The Belko Experiment, James says that it's unlikely that its count of 84 victims would get beaten any time soon. A mere 3 months later in June of 2018, The Purge: Election Year would beat it with 116 kills, with it also getting heavily eclipsed by other films later down the line, The First Purge at 133 kills, REC 3 with 161 kills/infections, Final Destination at 292 kills, Zombieland: Double Tap with 376 kills, and Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 at a then-record-shattering 4295 kills... only to be utterly annihilated by Emesis Blue at a staggering 800,054 kills!
  • During the Kill Count for Slither, Zoran mentions that it would be the closest they would get to covering a Marvel movie on the show due to it being directed by James Gunn and starring Michael Rooker. Later that same year, James would cover the MCU Disney+ special Werewolf by Night.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Go to any horror franchise wiki, find a victim from a film in that series, and you'll see a trivia note that says along the lines of : "[Character]'s death was named the Golden Chainsaw/Dull Machete of Dead Meat's Kill Count for [insert movie title]".
  • "I'll cut off your nutsack and nail it to my door!" ^Explanation When covering the unrated cut of Jennifer's Body James gets to a scene wherein Bill Fagerbakke playing the role of a vengeful father swearing up a a creatively graphic Freudian Threat after finding his son's corpse. James admits that the whole scene is funnier because of how said actor also voices Patrick Star. Which was quickly turned into a meme, being used to dub over certain scenes or outright making an animation off of it!
  • Business!^Explanation James' go-to line, spoken in Large Ham fashion, whenever a businessman, a corporation, or simple greed turns out to be the main cause of the problems in a film, when a (usually white-collar) character is busy working, or when he just has an excuse to use the word.
  • Your boot, sir!^Explanation In his Kill Count for season two of Stranger Things, when Ted Wheeler genially responds to the government agents searching his home by telling them "we're all patriots in this house", James' reaction is to serve him a boot on a silver platter and say that line in an upper-class English accent, as if to call him an unquestioning bootlicker. The clip went viral as a way to mock overzealous fans of celebrities, politicians, influencers, and other public figures, especially when they're trying to defend their idols from criticism.
  • Slow-ass Motherfuckin' Jeff!^Explanation James' frustration with the protagonist of Saw III is on clear display, as Jeff had a habit of hemming and hawing before "trying" to save someone, only for them to die anyway due to his delays. Whenever online discussions of that movie pop up, expect someone to chime in with this line
• Moment of Awesome: The "Get to the Numbers" segment offers James plenty of chances to show off, either through musical numbers or celebrity guests. You'll probably be able to get a chuckle out of some of these as well.
  • The The Lighthouse Kill Count features James delivering a parody version of Thomas Wake's curse monologue (written by former Practical Folks contributor and current DNDND DM James Graessle) with all the appropriate fury.
  • The Gremlins 2: The New Batch Kill Count features one of the most elaborate "To the Numbers" yet, simulating the Gremlins striking the video with a phony copyright claim and messing around with various other YouTube channels. Only the threat of being replaced with CGI in the remake can get them back in line.
  • The Scream (2022) features Ghostface "killing" James and providing the iconic Roger L. Jackson voiceover to the final breakdown.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Fans are likely to rejoice after hearing James open a video with "My name's James A. Janisse and welcome to the Kill Count!" after a six-month-long hiatus from New Year's Eve 2021 to June 2022.
• Nightmare Retardant: Invoked by James, as he presents his Kill Counts in a light-hearted manner in order to make them not too scary for audiences who aren't into gore or horror movies.
• Take That, Scrappy!: During the Tremors 3: Back to Perfection Kill Count, Zoran finds the subplot about Melvin trying to buy out and gentrify the valley so pointless that he completely ignores it until its wrapped up at the very end of the movie, where he quickly summarizes it and brushes it off.
• Tearjerker: Crossing over with Heartwarming, James starts his President's Day Kill Count with a somber disclaimer regarding the Parkland shooting and puts the national helpline number up, quietly signing off the disclaimer with "Be good people".

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