A BLOODY DEAD MEAT CHRISTMAS Interview with James A. Janisse, Chelsea Rebecca, and Wim Sweldens

Dead Meat is bringing to their fans worldwide some bloody good cheer this holiday season with their special A Bloody Dead Meat Christmas.

On Sunday, December 22, at 4 pm PT, James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca of the beloved horror YouTube channel Dead Meat will be hosting A Bloody Dead Meat Christmas at the historic Dynasty Typewriter Theatre in Los Angeles. This special horror holiday extravaganza will be a live, non-YouTube show both in front of a live audience and internationally live-streamed through direct-to-consumer streaming powered by Kiswe.

Joining Janisse and Rebecca to make this a holiday celebration to die for will be the Dead Meat crew, including everyone’s favorite Tremors expert, Zoran Gvojic, and surprise special guests. They will play some ghoulish holiday games and raffle prizes for both in-person and live-stream guests. For fans who want to buy a livestream ticket to witness the bloodshed virtually, they will be entered in a raffle for the chance to win a digital code for a horror movie. If you want to witness the carnage after the livestream, the video will be available on VOD 48 hours after the livestream ends.

Kiswe, co-created by Wim Sweldens, describes itself as "…a technology company that connects content owners to their audiences by building and managing direct-to-consumer streaming experiences." This collaboration with Dead Meat is their first venture into horror.

Janisse, Rebecca, and Sweldens share with us how this special came to be, what’s in store for fans, and their favorite holiday horror films.

Bonilla: How did the idea come up for the special?

James A. Janisse: Yeah, that came about from meetings with our representatives and us wanting to branch out and do more than just YouTube videos. We've had so many good interactions with fans at conventions, and we had a really good experience in Detroit earlier this year with our first-ever live show. So we figured another live show would be cool, and the timing just worked out to make it a holiday thing.

The timing also worked out that we did a show for a friend, James Willems, at Dynasty Typewriter. What was that? A month ago, a couple of months ago?

Chelsea Rebecca: It was like a month ago.

James A. Janisse: Yeah, and so we went there and had such a great experience that solidified the venue that we would do it at. And they were also interested in working with us. So, yeah. It was just everything working together.

When did Kiswe connect with Dead Meat?

Wim Sweldens: The connection happened through Dynasty Typewriter. We are a direct-to-consumer live-streaming company, so we work with all types of creators, helping them connect to their fans.

But one group we've been working with for the last three years is Smosh. So we've done a number of live shows with Smosh, which have been very successful. We then got to know James and the Dynasty Typewriter folks, because Smosh did a podcast, live from Dynasty Typewriter, just last week that we helped livestream and monetize, which was widely successful.

And then, as part of Dynasty Typewriter conversations, they said, “Hey, we have this really amazing show with Dead Meat. It's really popular. There are fans literally from all over the world who probably won't be able to come to LA to see this show in the theater." The show is sold out, so we figured we can reach a wider audience. We love connecting creative people with their diehard fans all over the world, so that's sort of how things came together.

We're thrilled. We've done lots of different types of content and sports and music and comedy. So this is our first step into the horror genre.

With this being the first collaboration of Kiswe with a horror creator, how does it feel for you?

Chelsea Rebecca: It's so exciting! It's so funny that our show, even though it'll be horror-themed, I don't think there's gonna be much that's super scary about it.

James A. Janisse: Well, we always say this, but we have to remember how desensitized we are from everything. Because we are going to be playing clips of people getting murdered and horror movie clips. And we're like, “Oh no, it's fine. It's fun for the whole family.” And then we're gonna show, you know…

Chelsea Rebecca: Someone getting their arm ripped off.

James A. Janisse: And killer Santas killing people with candy canes.

Chelsea Rebecca: We love it. We are very desensitized, that's true. We're going to be dressed up all festive and everything's going to be decorated. What's most exciting for me, beyond doing this very horror-themed live show, is the fact that we get to be pretty unscripted. We get to do that in the podcast, but this is on a bigger scale. The main series on the channel, The Kill Count, which is James's baby, is very scripted, and so it's fun to be able to get to do more stuff like this, where we get to just improvise and have fun. And it's a bit more chaotic.

James A. Janisse: Especially with The Kill Count, and I don't know how many people realize this, but I am sort of playing a character. I'm playing a host character and I do love the opportunities. Anyone who watches the podcast and The Kill Count understands that I'm playing that type of character because I'm much more myself on the podcast. So I'm excited to have that opportunity to be more just myself and play around and have fun. As opposed to going off of a script that's been revised over and over and over. It's fun to be natural sometimes.

Wim, you had talked about connecting creators directly with their fans. What else does your company want to bring to Dead Meat fans for this event?

Wim Sweldens: It's an opportunity for the fans to engage with each other. We have chat and interactive capabilities. So it's a way to bring the deeper engagement that you would get on, say, one of the big standard platforms. And a more personalized experience to fans all over the world. So we hope to do more with Dead Meat going forward.

James A. Janisse: To that end, we're going to have one of our team members, our social media guy, actually on stage with a laptop, tending to the live chat the whole time. So the people watching the stream are going to be able to see the person they're interacting with.

Chelsea Rebecca: We’re going to make him a little sign. We're making it part of the show, and it's part of the bit. He's going be the virtual audience representative. So they'll be able to see him the whole time. If he's laughing at something happening in the chat and we have no idea. Or we can check in with him and see what the people at home are saying. And yeah, there'll be a lot of fun.

James A. Janisse: And we decided to do that once we learned about the awesome interactive capabilities that Kiswe offers. Because once we heard about that, we realized, oh, this isn't just like a YouTube stream where it's just chats and that's it. There's an opportunity to really engage with those audience members who aren't able to make it there in person. And that's so exciting for us.

Wim Sweldens: This is what we love to hear. This is what we love. Because, when we started the company, my passion was really to make the audience part of the event. I like to say our product is ultimately a feeling that when you watch the event, you are part of the event. You're an active participant, instead of a passive participant. So the fact that the creative power of the technology is being used is music to our ears

And what type of prizes are in store for fans?

Chelsea Rebecca: Our dining room table is full of stuff we're giving away.

James A. Janisse: Yeah, after eight years of doing this channel, we've accumulated a lot of stuff, both from buying things for the videos and studios will send us mailers with really cool things. But there's only so much space that we have in our home for these things, so we have decided to take all the stuff that we just don't have the room for, but that's really cool and give it away to fans.

We're trying to make it so everyone will get at least something. We have holiday cards that we're going to give out to everyone who comes to the show. And even with the digital audience, we're getting them involved as well. We have a lot of digital codes for movies from all the Blu-rays we buy. So, everyone's gonna get stuff. It's the spirit of the season.

For the event, you're promoting a sock drive for charity. What inspired you to choose this charity and what does it mean to you?

Chelsea Rebecca: I’ve always wanted to work with this charity. It's called My Friend's House. For years, I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate them into something that we do. My Friend's House is a really cool organization that helps homeless youth, particularly LGBTQ youth. Their main thing is that they provide for kids and teens, [many] who've been kicked out of their homes due to their gender identity or sexual orientation. My Friend's House will help give them clothing and supplies.

Socks are the number one thing that homeless organizations want, especially during the winter, when it does get cold in LA. A very odd statistic that people find very surprising, myself included, is that more people die of hypothermia in Los Angeles than in New York City. It doesn't seem like that should be true, but there's just not as many options for indoor shelters here, because there's an assumption that it's LA, and it's warm outside, which it's not.

You know, we all are familiar with it here. It's a desert. It gets cold. Your feet get cold and wet, and it can be dangerous. It's just something that I care a lot about.

What is your favorite holiday horror movie?

Chelsea Rebecca: I really like Christmas Evil.

James A. Janisse: Nice pick.

Chelsea Rebecca: Christmas Evil is so fun. I'm just partial to the union hall aspect of it, and the factory workers. We're both from Detroit, so our dads both worked on the factory line. I remember my dad was a tinsmith, so I would always go to the Christmas parties on the factory floor. I would go to union Christmas parties, and that's a running thing in [Christmas Evil] and it just makes me feel very nostalgic. It's also a very sick and twisted movie and I love it. It's also John Waters' favorite Christmas horror movie. So yeah, I'm in good company.

James A. Janisse: Mine is Better Watch Out. I remember being shocked watching it because there's such a good twist in it. It's one of the movies I always tell people to watch without knowing anything about it. It manages to be really funny and really scary. The commentary that it has about modern-day pressures on young boys and how they react to those, in not-so-great ways sometimes, is really interesting to explore.

Wim Sweldens: I'm not sure if I have a favorite holiday horror movie. Horror-wise, for my age, I was sort of a little bit more into the Frankenstein genre. Holiday-wise, there is this animated movie called The Snowman, which is not a horror movie, narrated by David Bowie. That always tears me up when I watch that movie. We have actually been watching that with our kids at Christmas for the last 24 years.

What is your favorite horror movie of 2024 and why?

Chelsea Rebecca: Oh, I gotta go with The Substance.

James A. Janisse: Me too.

Chelsea Rebecca: I'm sure everyone says The Substance, but it's for a good reason. Coralie Fargeat is incredible, and I'm so happy that she's getting all of these accolades because she completely deserves it. It's so beautiful. Like it's gross and beautiful, and it really spoke to me and fears I have about my own self and aging and my body, and I love it. I got very vulnerable in our podcast review we did about it.

James A. Janisse: It's just such a confident movie. You have to believe in that project to make that thing, and it's incredible. I’m just so happy for her as a huge fan of Revenge, her previous film. As soon as I saw that she was making another movie, I was like, “Oh, we've got to see it!”

Is there anything else you would like Dead Meat fans to know about this event?

James A. Janisse: I'm just really excited for the show. This is exactly what we're trying to move into doing more of next year. I feel like ending this year with the show on these platforms at the Dynasty Typewriter is just such a good way to plant our flag in the ground and be like, “This is what we're doing in 2025.”

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To learn more about A BLOODY DEAD MEAT CHRISTMAS, visit: https://live.dynastytypewriter.com/

And keep up with DEAD MEAT at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2IYWWifoIht9T47z1Z5lJw

Photo Credit: Ben Bellevue