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Spooky season means candy, costumes, jack-o-lanterns, but most of all, a celebration of the horror movie genre! The only problem? There are tons and tons of horror movies to choose from and October only has 31 days. In addition to the unholy grail of streaming services, Shudder, platforms like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max and even Disney+ step up their scary content game for the month. Surely, slasher fans, gorehounds and budding horror enthusiasts don’t have time to revisit every iconic franchise, cult favorite and buzzy new title that’s on offer for those dying to stream and scream. That’s where James A. Janisse comes into the picture.
For three and a half years and counting, James A. Janisse has created an essential service for horror fans everywhere with his Dead Meat YouTube channel, a horror movie channel dedicated to “celebrating everything great and awful about the genre.” While the Dead Meat podcast (hosted by Janisse and his fiancé/horror expert Chelsea Rebecca) and the What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie series are not to be missed, the real jewel of the channel is The Kill Count where Janisse gives fans a rundown of horror movies by counting down the number of deaths in slickly edited, painstakingly detailed videos that range from about 18-28 minutes in length.
With Janisse’s easy charm (“TITLE CARD!”) and scholarly knowledge of the genre, The Kill Count is a heck of a lot of fun for both genre novices and seasoned gorehounds. He breaks down the numbers of kills by gender and other factors (depending on the movie) and divides it by the run time to give viewers a “kill on average” (For example: there are 4 kills in 92 minute-long The VVitch, which is a kill on average every 23 minutes). In addition to keeping track of all the deaths, Janisse awards the coolest kill the Golden Chainsaw award and the lamest kill the Dull Machete award.
While the numbers draw audiences in initially, what makes them stick around is the hours of research that Janisse and his team put into each installment. Peppered with fascinating facts, filmmaker quotes, and behind-the-scenes footage, The Kill Count is like Cliffs Notes for horror fans. Each video gives you a comprehensive guide to the story and gore driving each horror movie. And while not every film featured on The Kill Count is classic, that’s a good thing! By covering everything from the iconic (The Invisible Man) to the mediocre (Countdown) to the bad (Tales From The Hood 2) to the new school (Blood Quantum), Janisse and his team look at the horror genre as a whole and treat it with the respect it deserves.
Halloween is the perfect time to check out The Kill Count. Janisse and his editing team (Bryanna Paperno, Zoran Gvojic, Joshua Lyon and Mike Cygan) have put together a killer schedule of movies for the scariest month of the year. New episodes of The Kill Count are dropping every Friday, Sunday and Tuesdays (!) this month, including in-depth looks at Hereditary, Stranger Things Season 2 and Idle Hands. The Kill Count is making it easy for horror fans everywhere to treat themselves this spooky season.
