North Texas Daily

In April 2017 James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca introduced “Dead Meat,” a YouTube channel dedicated to counting the kills in staple horror movies. Since its launch, Janisse and Rebecca have cultivated one of the best channels the website has ever seen.

While the main focus of the channel is the “Kill Count” videos hosted by Janisse, it also features a weekly podcast hosted by Rebecca that constantly gets me through long drives and rather frustrating homework sessions. The “Kill Count” videos are not meant to scare viewers – the clever writing of each episode makes even the scariest movies seem a little comical at moments as Janisse breaks down each film. What I love most is the behind the scenes information shared, which also removes some of the terrifying aspects of murderers and monsters. The amount of work put into each episode absolutely blows my mind. Janisse has hosted live streams showing his viewers how he edits some of his videos and after watching one, I will never underestimate the workload of a video editor ever again.

The podcast is another part of the channel I heavily admire due to the diverse spread of topics covered on a weekly basis. Doing a weekly podcast is something that becomes tough when you feel you have talked about everything. For the Daily’s Dose podcast, there are times when I find myself scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas and I have to use the last of my brain cells to muster up a topic for the week. Rebecca makes it seem so flawless and smooth, and each week is a little better than the last. Whether the couple plays a game where they guess the tag lines of famous horror movies or they talk about transgender representation in horror, there is never a shortage of ideas. Their podcast is something I anticipate every week and it gives me something to look forward to when times are a little rough. If I could have one person be a guest on the Daily’s Dose podcast, I would love to sit down and talk to Rebecca and Janisse about horror and what goes into things like a highly popular YouTube channel.

What separates this channel from others is you don’t necessarily have to be a horror movie buff to enjoy their content however, I promise you after a couple of weeks you will be way more of a horror fan than you ever were before. To be part of the “Dead Meat” community is to also be a part of the horror community. We have all scrolled to the bottom of a video and seen an absolute warzone of a comment section, but it is so nice to see all the comments under the “Dead Meat” videos consist of conversations about the movies or topics covered. Everyone from Janisse and Rebecca to their moderators and video editors seem so passionate and happy to produce their content. It is so strange to say a YouTube channel revolving around Michael Myers and Axe Murderers is one of the most welcoming places on the internet, but it is most certainly the case.

We all miss movie theaters and getting our entertainment physically, so latching on to things like YouTube channels is something many of us have done in the last year. If you have always wanted to get into the horror genre but have always been extremely terrified to watch a horror movie, “Dead Meat” is the perfect channel for you.

Featured Illustration by J. Robynn Aviles