Hello everyone! I realized I didn't do a longform update for you in April or May, so I'd like to right that wrong and get back on track. Here is your insight into everything going on at Dead Meat.
2026 has been a busy year for us - I know we say that every year, but for some reason this one feels especially so. Part of it is all the travel we've been doing. SXSW brought us to Austin for just over a week in mid-March, and then we headed down to New Orleans for the Overlook Film Festival in early April - after a quick stop in New York for a set visit on an upcoming horror film that we are very excited about.
Additionally, I'm literally mid-travel right now - I'm typing this from a hotel room in Birmingham, Alabama. I was here last month for about a week shooting a small part in a film, and I'm back for a single day to wrap out my part. So all that (plus premieres, screenings, press junkets, etc) means a lot of time away from "the office" AKA our home, which obviously complicates our schedule (pour one out for Ben's sanity). While I can do some things on the road, like work on scripts, I can't film anything or even edit all that easily.
The travel is a big reason we're behind on Patreon rewards, which I sincerely apologize for. I promise we will make good on them, since that was one of my goals for this year. And of course you always have the option to request a refund, no questions asked (Patreon recently made it easier to see and process those requests, so that's nice). Another reason we're behind on rewards is because of some good news - Chelsea's been hard at work recording an audiobook, her first! I can't give any more details about it but I'm very excited for and proud of her. We'll let you know more as soon as we're able to.
Meanwhile I've been taking a screenwriting workshop and am happy to say I'm about 40 pages into the script I've been wanting to write for years. Fingers crossed I can get it done, and then it's onto all the other stuff that goes into making a movie (the most daunting of which, to me, might honestly be the revisions. It's hard enough to get this thing done, then I have to KEEP working on it? UGH!)
Anyway let's get to the updates on Dead Meat stuff!
Firstly, there's been a lot of progress on the DEAD MEAT HORROR AWARDS. Most of the category "pods", as we call them, have been edited - the parts that talk about each nominee. I'd say it's the bulk of the editing work so it's really cool to see them come together. We also have our winners determined thanks to our expanded panel of voters. So what's left? Well, we have to record the onscreen stuff with me and Chelsea; get videos from presenters and any winners who want to record an acceptance; edit all of that into the wider show, along with the opening montage and in memorium (which still haven't been edited yet)... and I think that might be it? We're getting close! So we should be able to hit a July release date. Later than I want, but better than never. Also, to avoid this happening again next year, I've already started work on the 2027 awards. I'm hoping we can write the show throughout the year instead of waiting until early next year to even start on it.
As for our other big project, the HORROR ROYAL RUMBLE, it's in stasis right now. The wrestlers are all made (except for 2 that Chelsea's going to make and swap some others out with) and they all have their entrance movements picked out, but the big thing remaining is making a venue and choosing all the lighting and pyrotechnics. Once that's done we can record their entrances, which need to be edited in separately, and then run the matches. But we're not in a hurry since we're planning on moving the HRR releases to October of each year, to coincide with the channel's period of highest traffic.
In CONVENTION NEWS, we were announced for SPAWN OF SCAREFEST in Lexington, Kentucky on June 5-7. Unfortunately, Chelsea isn't going to be able to make this one, so it'll be another solo convention trip for me. We apologize to anyone who was hoping to meet her, but she's a bit burnt out right now and more travel and long convention days isn't going to help that. She is hoping to join me for another convention in September, but since we haven't officially been announced for that one yet I'll hold off on further details right now.
For KILL COUNTS we're finishing up the Psycho series with a 1998 remake episode next Friday 5/29. It'll be hosted by Chelsea, completing the long running joke that movie's had on the Dead Meat Podcast. After that we'll move into June with episodes that we're not announcing ahead of time - not even with a trailer at the end of the Psycho '98 episode! June 5th's episode is going to drop as a complete surprise! Well, except I guess for patrons who get the early releases. They'll see it before anyone else.
RIGHT NOW I'm planning on doing a Kill Count every week in June, but Ben continually and repeatedly tells me it's not feasible with the schedule. He's usually right about that kind of thing. STILL I want to try because it's Pride Month and the episodes I have planned for 6/19 and 6/26 are The Rocky Horror Picture Show (FINALLY!!) and Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker. If one of them gets cut, it will be BBNM, which... again, I mean, Ben's usually right about these things so don't be surprised if that happens. But I'm still gonna try.
Even if that episode does get cut, you'll at least have a KILL COUNT GAME on 6/26! And that's of course over on the new channel DEAD MEAT GAMES which we just unveiled last week. It's actually a re-branding of Dead Meat Presents (RIP) so we didn't have to start from 0 subs again. This 2nd channel will be run by Zoran and Ben and celebrate horror in the gaming space, since there's a huge fanbase there. We even had a Polygon article announcing the launch, which was really cool.
And for anyone questioning why we're doing a second channel after it didn't work out with Dead Meat Presents, well, I think it's entirely different. Presents split the content we were already making on the original channel, separating them by format. But Dead Meat Games is separating content based on subject. Video games and movies/TV are entirely different things and the fanbases for them aren't exactly the same. I know that if I subscribed to a channel for its movie and TV analysis and they started putting out things about video games, I'd be less interested. Conversely, gamers who don't watch movies might not find our game content if it's all on a channel primarily dealing with film.
Plus, while Dead Meat Games will be the new home of Kill Count Games, it will also feature all new series that would never have been made on the original channel. Zoran and Ben will be doing a news livestream, similar to my Monday Morning ones, called DMG REPORT. That show will be every other week on Tuesday, starting next week on 5/26.
And Dead Meat Games will have its own podcast, too, called WHAT WE PLAY IN THE SHADOWS, hosted by Zoran and Gina DeVivo (who made Puppet James!!) with Ben in the Graessle role as producer / line editor. That show will release every other week on Wednesdays, alternating with the Dead Meat Podcast, and the first episode is this week on 5/20. In it, Chelsea joins Zoran and Gina to welcome them into the Dead Meat podcasting world and discuss Pokemon if it were horror.
As for the DEAD MEAT PODCAST, hopefully you saw our great interview with Curry Barker that came out on Monday as a sort of bonus episode. We'll be back on our usual schedule next Wednesday 5/27 when we talk about his movie Obsession. We already recorded it and talked for 2 and a half hours!! Not sure what that will edit down to but obviously we had a LOT to say about our favorite horror movie of the year so far.
I've filmed four or five episodes of WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE? and have two more to do... or maybe four more, I might be adding a couple more guests. Unfortunately our editors are all slammed so these haven't been edited yet. I'd like to get them all ready to the point where we can release them weekly on Sundays, but that will have to wait until there's enough editor availability.
I think that's about it. We did an interview for Backrooms with director Kane Parsons and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. It was only 15 minutes but a great conversation. That should be out next week leading up to the movie's release - which is another banger, by the way. I can't wait to see it again. Very good, very creepy, and remarkable that it was directed by someone not old enough to drink at his own wrap party. Horror's in good fucking hands, y'all.
Thanks for everything. Be good people.
- James