Halloween is over, and I am quite sad about it.
There’s Christmas to look forward to, of course, but I honestly find the Halloween season to be a bit more interesting. I love the aesthetics of Halloween, with its oranges, yellows, and reds; I love the atmosphere, with everyone chattering on and on about pumpkin-flavored anything and wearing their favorite flannel shirts. Most of all, though, I love watching horror movies during the Halloween season, but I also love to watch them year-round.
However, it wasn’t always like this.
When I was younger (probably around the age of seven or eight), I remember falling in love with horror movies. While I cannot exactly remember the first film I watched in the genre, I do recall being obsessed with Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, Wes Craven’s 1984 slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Ronny Yu’s 2003 Freddy vs. Jason (which I am nowadays a bit embarrassed to admit I once enjoyed).
Most people would say the aforementioned films were not appropriate for an intermediate school student, but surprisingly, the films did not bother me much at the time. In fact, hardly any horror movie scared me as a child!
That is, until Marcus Nispel’s 2009 remake of Friday the 13th.
I’m still not entirely sure why, but for some reason, the film scared me out of my wits, and because of Jason Voorhee’s, any love I had for the horror genre disappeared and I strayed away for it for almost the past ten years. Sure, I watched the occasional horror movie here and there (such as James Wan’s The Conjuring and Ari Aster’s Hereditary), but the passion I had for the genre just wasn’t there like before.
Then Dead Meat came into the picture.
For those of you who don’t know, Dead Meat is a YouTube Channel ran by James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, a couple with a deep passion for the horror genre. Since the upload of their first video on April 7, 2017, the channel has earned a whopping 3.3 million subscribers, and their success shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
In terms of content, Dead Meat is known for hosting two popular segments.
The first (and likely most popular) is the Kill Count, a segment that airs every Friday which (as James A. Janisse, the host, begins each video) “tallies up the victims in all our favorite horror movies.” The Kill Count has covered a ton of classic horror film series such as Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Candyman, Final Destination, Halloween, Saw, and Scream. The Kill Count isn’t just all about showing horror movie deaths, though. James A. Janisse also provides behind the scenes footage and fun facts for each film he covers, as well as offering a summary and review for the entire film. It’s a great alternative for those who aren’t fond of watching horror movies themselves, but still want to see what a certain one entails.
The second segment on the channel is the Dead Meat Podcast, which airs every Tuesday. Hosted by both James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, the podcast is full of in-depth horror movie reviews (of films both old and new), fun games with a horror twist (episodes have included Would You Rather and March Madness featuring prominent horror icons, Guess the Tagline of horror movies, etc), and analyses into horror culture and its common themes (past episodes have included the Final Girl trope, Transgender Representation in Horror, Indian Burial Grounds, etc). It’s a great way to learn more about certain aspects of the horror genre that aren’t commonly talked about, and James and Chelsea do so in a casual, but respectful manner that anyone can follow along to.
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