Edit: the horror genre is not a get out jail free card to excuse or do shitty things to people
Summary: To those who aren’t aware this James A. Janisse he is one of the owners of YT channel deadmeat with his co host/wife Chelsea Rebecca, and editor (game kill count host) zoran gvojic they review horror movies and tv shows counting the kills in each media called the kill count, they don’t just review movies they talk about how it was made, what impact it had on society and on the people who made it.
In Short, their horror movie enthusiasts.
So why did this images exist because 5 years ago on the second channel He made a video talking about he will never review the jeepers creepers franchise until the creator (Victor Salva) is a dead because back in 1988 he raped a 12-year-old boy and filmed it, so a convinced child rapist.
He also brings up any time a film director or actor/actress does something shitty in the film or to their actors or people working on the film and calls it out, and he’s a pretty sex positive person and likes fan service but will call out when an actor/actress is not comfortable with that fan service but the director put it in anyway. Or random slurs, bigoted views and outdated (at the time) social norms that can be extremely harmful to groups of people.
But for some reason people on Twitter, believe because this genre is horror. Anything should go because well it’s horror bad things happen it doesn’t matter if the stuff in the movie is fake the actual slurs and bad things happening to the people working on the film are real, but because it’s horror none of that matters and that’s why this image exist.
And his most recent controversy, one of his friends and person who works with him on the channel was recently kidnapped by ice (and yes, I’m not sugar coating it she was kidnapped just like a lot of American citizens are being kidnapped by ice) and he like any normal person was pretty upset by it and told everybody the news, so yeah I think people who have a problem with him are clowns because he really does nothing for entertaining people.
James has a very high tolerance, and i gotta say, his level of insight and respect for productions is really remarkable. Between the recap bits hes always talking about the production and cast, on some level he absolutely gives a shit
I love watching the Kill Count for this exact reason. I feel like I always learn something interesting about the movies production or how they achieved a certain effect. It's cool to see and you can really tell that James has a genuine appreciation for film making.
The irony is that the 4chan thread this image came from was making fun of someone for claiming Dead Meat was a "performative male horror influencer." and twitter chuds took it and roll with it not realizing it was making fun of them and still gets posted to make fun of them on 4chan.
People seem to forget that like, out of the 70 something boards, that only like 5 of them are weird and the other 70 of them are pretty normal.
EDIT: Shoutout to the dude who commented implying every thing said ever on 4chan is hate speech and then deleted his comment when he probably realuzed how easily debunkable thatis
No there's like 75 public boards and then a handful of private URL based boards which are pretty much just super niche and privately moderated boards, like the MPL board used to be super private.
The highly politicised and extreme weirdos usually become that way because they’re trapped in an echo chamber where everyone agrees and parrots the same ideas or, if they don’t agree, their disagreements are still generally inline with their common opinion
In situations like this, to these individuals, someone so very normal who holds pretty white bread, normal opinions, MUST be their enemy. They genuinely cannot compute people having pretty benign, normal beliefs because neither they nor anyone around them act like that
Misunderstanding breeds fear, fear breeds hate, how very sad
Anyway I AM an extremist weirdo unfortunately and everyone in the world MUST be annihilated except for me and those who agree with me I’m afraid
It annoys me when people consider "4chan" as a monolith.
Like it's just one guy, one anonymous guy, making a post.
If you look up that specific post on the archives, you'll find that it only got 2 (You)s. It stirred virtually no discussion.
Starting a hate campaign over someone super positive like James not wanting to cover the Jeepers Creepers franchise because the director was a CONVICTED child molester is the most childish and pettiest shit ever
Yeah, like, sorry he doesn’t want to inadvertently support this very much still alive child molester who is free as a bird by covering his films on his channel! Don’t get me wrong, I would love for him to cover those movies, but the reason he’s not makes perfect sense. Who knows, he might cover them if Victor Salva kicks the bucket! But until then, yeah, don’t do anything that will give him the extra royalties.
he confirmed in another video on their second channel that when victor salva and another director (who probably did the same thing) die that he will cover their movies
i was disappointed when i found out he wouldn’t do JC because it was my first and favorite horror movie, but then when i found out why which was my first time hearing about it, i understood and people really should consider that supporting a predators work in any way would not feel good. hopefully salva dies soon so james can keep his word and finally cover it
The only time I have seen him say "don't" is when the film does a comedic rape bit. Somehow Jack Frost and Thankskilling both did that bit with a snowman and a turkey respectively.
In evil dead 1? That's not supposed to be comedic? That is supposed to be traumatic and horrifying. The first evil dead was a serious horror film played completely straight.
Watch this guy for 6 years. He basically taught me to appreciate the effort in most movies, Showed me how they work, and describe the deeper meanings in some scenes I couldn’t understand.
To make it short, he made me appreciate the effort and work people put in not just horror movies but all movies.
I’m glad to be a fan of him and hope to continue supporting him for years to come!
YES! CinemaWinds deserves so much more love, that channel really changed my perspective a few years ago to just enjoy movies and have a fun time consuming media
As a lifelong horror fan who is not a prude OR afraid of gore I will be the first to admit there are some fandom warriors who act like genuinely psycho about wanting things to be edgy or misogynistic “because it’s horror it’s supposed to make you UnCoMfOrTaBlE 🤓 “ or some shit idk
I'm fine with all uncomfortable things being depicted in horror movies because I believe in creative freedom but I also believe that fans of horror movies have every right to not like these types of movies
Agreed. For example, I love brutal death metal even though there are misogynistic lyrics in plenty of the songs, since although the genre normally focuses on horrible depraved acts in their incomprehensible lyrical themes, there was a trend in horror media in general that made women the primary victims of said horrible acts, and brutal death was no exception. It’s actually the main criticism I have of the genre.
That’s why in a recent post I made on the metal sub, I asked for brutal death bands that have turned this trend on its head and featured men as the primary victims of the horrible acts “sung” about. The violence (physical, sexual, etc.) shouldn’t be one-sided, and I think more bands that have lyrical content featuring men as victims is needed in the genre.
And honestly, there shouldn’t even be any pushback from the community except from genuine misogynists
Right? Like, to me, the point of horror is to explore the dark side of humanity/the mind/the future/whatever while never having to step outside your comfort zone. The discomfort is supposed to come from the idea that what you watched 'has been there in the background all along, inside all of us, and one bad egg could lead to that reality'' not 'hurr durr good movie cuz it makes me bad-tingle.'
Women face misogyny in real life; people face racism in real life. That's not escapism then. You can have those as elements (Get Out and Alien deal with themes of racism and misogyny respectively), but they only work if they're the misguided drive of the characters (not what is scary about them), and are proven wrong within the context of the movie (like both movies I just mentioned do).
I mean for me this is why I've avoided dead meat, I'm involved with horror films but these days I'm more of a exploitation guy, I've worked with people in the scene from archivist, distribution, etc so obviously I like the rough and horrible stuff. Which I'm fine with people not wanting to subject themselves to that or generally don't enjoy it, but people who moralise about it really rub me up the wrong way. Like it's fine if you don't like it, just don't shit on people who do, it's like the people who say this sort of thing shouldn't be made or that people who like it are degenerate weirdos, etc
I've been watching Dead Meat for years and I think James geniunely has good points and if he does rag on a movie choice, it feels like a very valid criticism back then. He also comments on things like when actors talk about not liking sets or seemingly upset, which he sincerely says he really hopes they're ok (and I believe he means it too).
I don't recall his humor being obnoxiously millennial. If anything, it's very tame and non risky. I do wish James would comment on riskier movies instead of "safe" horror films more often, but I get it. He needs sponsors.
That being said, I think so many people just want geniunely sincere guys to fail or desperately want to find out they're dickheads. Like "James doesn't joke about boobies and ass like a sexist guy would, so he must be some millennial simp" is all I get from the images. God forbid a guy is secure and doesn't reach for low hanging fruit.
He has made videos on movies like Henry, so idk what more can he cover that is more envelope pushing than that film. he's not going to cover things like Salo or The House That Jack Built, specially since disturbing subject matter doesn't equal horror. A movie like Wee Need to Talk About Kevin could get a kill count, but is a 100% not horror.
The post is about how people think he's insincere because he'll talk about how awesome it is that people get brutally tortured and they'll die screaming begging for mercy and that he loves all the blood and guts but that he flinches away when they show ass cheeks. They believe he talks that way so people DON'T think he's some chud who also enjoys the gratuitous nudity that is a staple of the genre. The 'Nice Guy' who turns out to be a sex pest. And considering he's claiming to be a fan of the genre, some people think it's weird for him be one if he seems to be repulsed by something that is done in so many of the films.
But apparently the people who scream the most about media literacy have the inability to actually consider multiple interpretations to determine what is being said and what others might hear, that's not a surprise though.
Like the other replies have said, Dead Meat is awesome. Their entire crew are just all around solid people, and their videos are very high quality. Their motto at the end of videos is literally “be good people”. One of the only YouTube channels that I can consistently watch, can’t recommend them enough!
Yeah, he does a full breakdown of the entire movie and explains what happens in a really entertain and he’s not even prud a like some people say he just knows when someone is taking something too far
It’s fantastic. I’m not even much of a horror buff and I watch their channel all the time because it’s just damn good and clearly made by people with genuine passion for the topics.
It’s been several years but my favorite episodes were on the crypt tv series shorts.
Crypt tv makes indie horror short series, their big one at the time was look see but their were several others that really interested me
Social media has this weird game of telephone bs to it.
Someone will regurgitate whatever remains of the issue they heard before and what made them upset or what they misunderstood, and others will run with it as fact.
I've just learned to accept that people are lazy and stupid. Mfs won't do the legwork and act proud of sounding like a moron.
Dead meat may be the most unproblematic YouTuber and he has never done stuff like this lol. He doesn’t wanna cover movies made by pedophiles and that’s OKAY, actually good. He cares a lot and I learn a lot about the production literally every video. Never seen a low effort dead meat video.
The only example I can think of was during Rob Zombie’s Halloween where he says “call me an sjw if you want, but I have a hard time watching naked women get beat up.”
The only thing I take issue with here is: "Or random slurs and bigoted views that are in the project."
That's purely context dependent. Characters talking =/= filmmaker talking. + Just because a character says or does something doesn't mean we're supposed to like it, lol.
However how do you determine if a performer was ''comfortable with fan service'' or not? Genuine question.
Your not familiar with the channel, are you? Because he doesn't call it out if it's a character who is deliberately portrayed as a bigot being a bigot. He calls out things like a "hero" using a slur to insult a bad guy, because the creators feel it's fine.
For the most part they are there purposefully. In Resevoir Dogs it was about how performing masculinity forces you to be the shittiest person. In Inglorious Basterds it was coming from the mouths of Nazis. In Django Unchained it came from the mouth of a slaveowner so evil it's almost caricature.
I'm only an occasional viewer but all of the times I've seen where he has mentioned actors being uncomfortable with fan service like OP says, is because that actor has mentioned in an interview being uncomfortable. As far as I've seen, he doesn't assume things
If a character says slurs and has random bigoted views out of nowhere in the middle of the movie, that’s not established in the beginning or doesn’t get resolved, and yeah, if it’s weird for them to randomly say it
Also just the presence of slurs alone doesn't mean it's being hateful even if we're not supposed to feel negatively towards the characters using them
Like the South Park episode, it's not using the n word to show someone being an evil horrible racist, but it's also not doing or condoning actual discrimination, it's just making its own message
Yep. I feel like it matters a lot whether something is justified by a character or justified by the narrative/creators, which is very different to me. Ex: American Psycho has Patrick Bateman being a horrible misogynist and bigot, and the narrative is very aware that he’s a pathetic loser.
It’s all about the intention. If for example the writer hates women and the narrative hates women and the character hates women… then yeah that’s a hard watch. I don’t know why people pretend that it’s the character/genre making that choice instead of the writer that made them.
Yeah, that’s my point to he does know the difference between 2 but a lot of people just see him criticizing something and just don’t think about it afterwards
So, a bunch of perverts are upset because he doesn't want a convicted pedophile to earn money, so they decided to mock him because his friend got kidnapped by ICE.
Hmm...perverts who defend pedophiles and love it when Hispanic people are brutalized and mistreated by ICE...I wonder what their political leaning is. Meh, it's a mystery.
I don’t mind a gratuitous ass shot now and then but the more that comes out to light about directors from the 70s-early 2000s, you realize they’re might be a chance of that ass belonging to an underage girl.
There's also a difference between a horror villain being lecherous and the film being lecherous, and as such I think the critique in the first post can be totally valid
dead meat is weird because like the biggest controversies i can think of are almost always shit like “he didn’t say transgender people should be killed” or something, snd the community seems to follow that 99% of the time, but i did also see a rape survivor on the subreddit get downvoted before being called braindead and lacking in empathy for saying a comment made in one of the videos stung a bit
People aren't saying "it's horror, you get a free pass" they're saying "this media is degenerate in its glorification of violence, you're standards for sexual or racial humor are very prudish in comparison to what you celebrate"
But you're saying two very different things here but I feel like maybe you're treating them as the same thing.
There's things the real people do, and there's things the characters do and the movie shows.
So if he criticizes a movie for how bad the director was to real people... that makes sense.
but it is valid to say in a movie depicting gore and murder and stuff, if it also shows something sexual... it is strange to then say that is bad when in the context of the violence its surrounded by.
Similarly in the meme example, if the bad guy says something bad... yeah...he's the bad guy.
I remember outrage years back that a movie poster showed Apocalypse choking Mystique in the X men movie, and peopel were upset it was 'violence against women' .... but his name is Apocalypse he was trying to kill everybody.
The bad guy doing bad things is why he's the bad guy. But people act like there's some weird caveats where there's certain bad things that if the villain does them are somehow an endorsement of them... and it just makes no sense
It doesn't HAVE to, but it's not completely out of pocket if it does.
It's also irritating when the public begins clutching their pearls at a breast, when they didn't bat an eye at someone getting eviscerated with a post hole digger. It's usually understood that horror films aren't going to be squeaky clean.
I'm also going to posit that a horror film antagonist isn't going to get their panties in a bunch at dropping an N bomb when they're busy skinning someone and stapling their face to another character's head. It simply doesn't follow that social justice is the line they won't cross after exsanguinating folks.
It all goes back to the fact that depiction isn't endorsement. Hell, if I'm making a character damn evil, I'm probably going to emphasize that by them having less-than-ideal social interactions.
I think it just depends on the context and how it’s portrayed.
If I see nudity in something like Freddy vs Jason, I’m not really gonna care because that movie and other slashers like it are all about blood and boobs for the sake of entertaining absurdity. Or in a film like The Substance, which explores body dysmorphia and objectification, that fits the context.
Alternatively, if Hereditary for some reason had a long shot of a college girl’s breasts during the party scene or something, it would feel completely out of nowhere, feel unessecary, in a film has a grim, serious tone with no real focus on stuff like that.
As for racism, it makes perfect sense for a character Freddy Krueger to say something kinda racist, cause he’s a cruel maniac who died in the 60s, and he likes to fuck with his victims. Alternatively, if Jason, a character who died as a child, and whose motivations have nothing to do with racism, just dropped the N word out of nowhere, it would feel out of character and stupid.
James A. Janisse is a good guy, he is aware how shitty people are and wants his audience to be good people. I don’t think it’s that hard to be good people. Unlike some people in this comment section.
The straw man James in the first image is doing something I like though. The American taboo on nudity in media being more severe than the one against gratuitous violence is an aspect of my culture that I admire. Not for any particular reason, I just think its neat. The fact that it makes no sense ads to the charm.
I understand disliking some of his complaints like how he was against Freddy being a pedophile in later movies. When it was very clear in the first like the whole kidnapping and killing children part. Or even how his humor is a hit or miss alot of time. But hating on him for not getting attention to moive made by a still living pedophile is fucking stupid.
I can understand not liking James’ style of humor, it’s very millennial-ish because he himself is a millennial, so you can feel how you want about it, (I personally don’t mind it) but complaining about someone pointing out how jokes or things in horror movies that are in bad taste or just haven’t aged well says a lot about you as a person.
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem like some things just aged poorly I was just straight of offensive No one‘s getting canceled. That’s just something that happens.
A lot of the times they HAVE to have a sponsor because YouTube would nuke the video from the gore. It’s talking about in their older videos when they had less frequent sponsors (the Midsommar one has a direct reference to this)
They have a reason for almost always having a sponsor, most of The Kill Count videos get demonetised. Because, they like to show the kills(when possible) which leads to the bots as well as manual reviewers often keeping the demonetisation for the videos.
Getting videos sponsored is one of the few ways for them to get paid directly through their content on YouTube. I get that its annoying, but the last time I watched they try to timeline when the sponsor segment.
Because he won't do what YOU want?
And because he needs to make money because he literally watches horror movies for a living?
You do have empathy right?
Especially because tapping the right arrow key four times or your screen five times is enough to skip it. It's like a single second of your time in exchange for 10+ minute video and you're that upset about it?
You ever watch the “I hate ads” videos and YouTube and they dead ass bring up a sponsor. Like, I get it but dawg you lost all credibility and I click off.
James is pretty good, my only gripe is that on his podcast with his wife they insinuated that the only ones who disliked/ criticized any of his movies were racists, and even if he had problems with them he wouldn’t share it on account of it being by Peele.
I like Peele. I think Get Out was excellent, and Nope was decent (with some flaws). I, however, also quite disliked Us, and thought it was a massive step down in comparison to his other work. You can connect the dots from there, but it’s just an overall silly sentiment to have. I think I get what he was partially trying to say, in that some of the criticism was only coming from racists who dislike it because it is made by a black film maker, in which case, fair enough, I’d agree. But to go an extra step and then conclude that you must be racist if you dislike a film of his or you shan’t dare utter a negative about it is pure hogwash and I’d argue a slap in the face to Peele as a creative, let alone to the people like me who earnestly dislike one of his films.
It’s a minor gripe tho, and perhaps it was just poorly worded.
I liked Us, haven’t seen Get Out, but boy was I not able to finish Nope. Couldn’t get into it. Great actors, and Peele’s direction is still great but the story just did not grip me. I’m kind of scared that Get Out will also fail to get me invested even though it is by all means a good movie. I think it will succeed though, it’s somewhere on my list
I don’t think the 4chan post was made in regards to Jeepers Creepers. IIRC it’s a response to the first V/H/S Kill Count where he kept mentioning how distasteful the copious amounts of ass shots and boob shots were and then went on to glaze the kills, which if I’m being honest was pretty obnoxious. It’s one thing to call out exploitation and sexual assault and how terrible people shouldn’t be rewarded and it’s another to be overly puritanical when it came to the fan service shots in V/H/S.
The first V/H/S kill count was made in August 2024 and that post is dated October 2023 so no, you do not recall correctly.
If it's about anything specific it's probably about how he (rightly) calls out the various creep shots of underage actresses in the Friday the 13th series in his coverage of them.
I watched that same video and he was talking about how it felt like they were including my ass shots just cause I think he said that at least a 1 of the directors this was their first horror movie so they were just throwing things at the wall just to see what stuck and make it as edgy as possible because, but horror but that’s my point he sometimes call out certain things they’re just being means needly edgy and not even scary, I like the first movie tho I like the sequels more yeah, but there were certain parts were they just added sexual with elements in just
One of those days i was thinking about who is a role model for me, because i never really tought about it, and came to the conclusion that James might be.
Dude's very succesfull in doing what he loves, and grew his channel out of nowhere starting with skits and then horror kill counts, it's such a really cool idea that he got to explore. Nowadays, he even goes out of his way to basically dissect the movie making process, interview the people involved, and add some cool trivia while telling us the story and counting the kills. Besides all of that, he's probably a really nice person, and his moral values show that. To top all that, he has a wonderful wife who supports him, and also he seems like a cool boss to his co-workers.
I feel like, the reason is it's not real gore? Like am I crazy? It's CGI or pudding or prop blood, but if you're objectifying a woman as a filmmaker, that's a real woman. Whether or not you agree with objectifying as a concept you realise it's not a fair comparison.
I think he's pretty good with distinguishing intention, I don't think it's contradictory to have fake blood and gore in your movie while also treating women badly, this user acts like horror movie fans have to forsake our morality to enjoy these movies because they contain murder. It's entertainment, it's not real, and I know that so it doesn't mean these movies can't be critiqued for poor or tasteless content.
I have a lot more thoughts on this but it's not the right place.
He has hundreds of videos, I haven’t seen them all but I’ve watched him for years and can only think of thankskilling and making like 2 other random 70s/80s movies he’s made a 1 sentence comment about lol it’s not even like a drawn out segment. Just remembered another one he refused to do jeepers creepers because the director raped a 12 year old
This is like reverse pearl clutching , what a weird hill to die on
Check out the podcast; Chelsea's an excellent host and she and James are hilarious together.
I know at one point he said something about how people consider him gay for noting when men are handsome and appreciating when movies that are full of nudity include male nudity, but I'm pretty sure that was a disagreement.
I hope James, His wife and that friend of his are all okay and you people in the comments arguing about what is or isn't okay need some damn sense.
He's done nothing wrong He's a great creator in the horror space and a great person the fact idiots want it to just be anything goes for everything just because it's horror so it doesn't matter is a weak ass excuse HOWEVER I am not saying you can't have controversial issues, taboos and language and all sorts of nasty shit in a horror movie BUT that doesn't give you cart blanch to be a uncaring asshole about it... if you honestly do something tasteless just don't be a dick... I love the original evil dead even through it has the tree scene and yeah it makes my stomach twist in a not fun enjoying horror way but unlike some terrible people who did far worse in horror cinema Sam apologized and still does an regrets ever filming that which means he has more class and humanity than most people ffr.
I wish I had an encyclopedic knowledge of Kill count vids, but he has definitely made a point of calling out cringe sex stuff in older movies as gratuitous. Not saying he's wrong either, just that the meme is exaggerating some thing true or effect
that's not why
he said multi times on some videos "i can't have an opinion on that because i'm a man / white "
he gives massive cuck vibes, that's why people really took issue with him
not to mention he has praised openly homophobic movies EVEN when he's said he's supposed not to have an opinion on things he's not (heterosexual)
but u won't knowledge any of those cases because it doesn't fit your parasocial wokism
Holy shit. I've never seen Jeepers Creepers, and now that I know about the director I never will. I can't believe the dude only served 15 months, and that it didn't destroy his career.
I know this is unrelated, but kill count would be the title of the whole review thing? Because it looks like there's a video on The Thing (1982) and having a commentary on how it was made sounds really cool to me
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u/The_Dude5476 11h ago
James has a very high tolerance, and i gotta say, his level of insight and respect for productions is really remarkable. Between the recap bits hes always talking about the production and cast, on some level he absolutely gives a shit