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Sometimes, it's not enough for a horror movie to have a frightening premise. It has to scare its prospective audience right there in the title! This mentality leads to a title with so many "scary" words or phrases that it becomes ridiculously redundant, a la Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000. Often, the title doesn't even make sense when held up to scrutiny. (Try to visualize some of the examples below...though it might be best if you didn't.) In brief, instead of frightening potential viewers, these titles provoke the reaction "Eww!" or "What the hell is this movie about?"

This trope was a hallmark of B Movies, which used over-the-top gore and mayhem as a selling point, even when there was little to be seen. A subtrope of Intentionally Awkward Title, where the over-the-top title is used but not necessarily with violence.

In practice, the trope usually inspires Squick or Narm rather than fear. It also tends to involve the Department of Redundancy Department. Related to Overly Long Name and Overly Long Gag.


Straight examples:[]

Film[]

  • -- And Now the Screaming Starts!
  • Attack of the Cockface Killer
  • At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, its sequel This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse and the loosely related The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe (the third film, Embodiment of Evil, is too light for this trope).
  • Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires
  • The Beast in Heat
  • Big Fucking Monster
  • Big Tits Zombie
  • Black Devil Doll from Hell
  • Bloodsucking Freaks
  • The Blood Beast Terror (aka The Vampire Beast Craves Blood)
  • Blood Feast
  • Blood Freak
  • Blood of Ghastly Horror
  • Blood of the Man-Devil (aka House of the Black Death)
  • The Blood on Satan's Claw
  • Blood Orgy of the She-Devils
  • Bloody Pit of Horror
  • Bloodrape
  • Brain of Blood
  • Brides of Blood
    • And its sequel, Mad Doctor of Blood Island
  • Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (aka Night Warning)
  • Candyman Farewell to The Flesh
  • Cannibal Holocaust
  • Cannibal Hookers
  • Colonel Kill Motherfuckers
  • The Corpse Grinders
  • Creature of the Walking Dead
  • Curse of Pirate Death
  • Demented Death Farm Massacre
  • Die You Zombie Bastards!
  • Doctor Bloodbath
  • Doctor Blood's Coffin
  • Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill!
  • The Eerie Midnight Horror Show
  • Entrails of a Virgin
  • Evil Dead Trap
  • Filthy McNasty
  • The Flesh and Blood Show
  • Flesh Eating Mothers
  • Flesh Feast
  • Flesh for the Beast
  • Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island
  • The Gestapo's Last Orgy (aka Last Orgy of the Third Reich)
  • Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
  • Goregasm
  • The Gore Gore Girls
  • Gory Gory Hallelujah
  • Halloween Camp 2: Scream If You Wanna Die Faster (known as Adam & Evil in the US)
  • Hands of the Ripper
  • Hardcore Poisoned Eyes
  • Hell of the Living Dead (also known as Zombie Creeping Flesh in the UK and Night of the Zombies in the US)
  • Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers
  • Horror of the Blood Monsters (aka Vampire Men of the Lost Planet)
  • Horror Rises from the Tomb
  • House of 1000 Corpses
  • House of Blood
  • House of Pain
  • I Dismember Mama
  • I Drink Your Blood
  • I Eat Your Skin
  • I'll Kill You... I'll Bury You... I'll Spit on Your Grave Too!
  • I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave
  • I Spit on Your Grave
  • The Incredibly Strange Creatures!!?
  • Johnny Sunshine Maximum Violence
  • KillerKiller
  • The Last House on Dead End Street
  • Lesbian Vampire Killers
  • Massacre of the Cannibal Acid Fiends (Cinema de Bizarre even sells this with a recipe. NSFW)
  • The Midnight Meat Train
  • Nightmare in a Damaged Brain
  • Night of the Blood Beast
  • Night of the Blood Monster (the US release title of Hammer Horror's The Bloody Judge)
  • Night of the Bloody Apes
  • Porno Holocaust
  • The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
  • ReGOREgitated Sacrifice
  • Sadisticum
  • Scream and Scream Again
  • Scream Bloody Murder
  • Schizophreniac: The Whore Mangler
  • Shriek of the Mutilated
  • S.I.C.K.: Serial Insane Clown Killer
  • Slaughtered Vomit Dolls
  • Slow Torture Puke Chamber
  • The Slumber Party Massacre
  • Stabbed in the Face
  • Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood
  • Taste the Blood of Dracula
  • Terror Creatures from the Grave
  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
  • Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives
  • Tokyo Gore Police
  • Tombs of the Blind Dead
  • Twitch of the Death Nerve
  • Violent Shit
  • Zombie Cult Massacre
  • Zombie Holocaust
  • Zombie Island Massacre
  • Zombie Strippers

Literature[]

Music[]

Visual Novels[]

  • Gore Screaming Show (Although, bizarrely enough, it's the name of a character. Does that disqualify it? Probably not.)

Parodies of the trope:[]

Film[]

Literature[]

  • Parodied in The A-to-Z of Absolutely Everything with The Sex Devil from the Planet Blood.
  • Neil Gaiman's short story Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire. Whoo.
  • Sergey Lukyanenko once told a joke about an editor who tells a young author that a successful book nowadays needs to be about space, sex, gore, or demons. A month later the author brings Bloody Orgy in Martian Hell. Later Sergey actually wrote and published exactly that. It was a Stylistic Suck short story called an excerpt of the aforementioned novel, but still.
  • Toxic Teen Lesbian Zombie Vampire Chainsaw Bitches from Outer Space 3, a film script made up for Zephyr Goza's The Tomato Soup Chronicles.
  • Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)

Live-Action TV[]

  • Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death
  • Parodied with the title of the recurring SCTV sketch "Monster Chiller Horror Theatre." Also parodied with the Show Within a Show's often-promised but never actually screened feature, Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvannia.
    • And Doctor Tongue's 3-D House of Meat!
  • The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders brings us the wonderful children's book Doctor Blood's Orgy of Gore. It's about seven plump mice who got sweaters and lived happily ever after.
  • Red Dwarf gave us Revenge of the Mutant Splat-Gore Monster and Die Screaming with Sharp Things in your Head.
    • And those excellent cinematic treats, Revenge of the Surfboarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls and The Attack of the Giant Savage Completely Invisible Aliens!?
  • In one episode of Leave It to Beaver, the Beaver tells his parents he wants to go see a double-feature with his friends. When they ask what movies they'll be seeing, he replies Massacre at Blood River and Voodoo Curse.

Music[]

  • Death Metal band Blood Vomit and their album Up From The Grave, not to mention the song titles ("The Shredder", "Human Butcher", "Madman of the Woods", etc.). In fact, pretty much any death metal band.
  • Thrash Metal band Lich King recorded a song titled "Attack of the Wrath of the War of the Death of the Strike of the Sword of the Blood of the Beast".

Newspaper Comics[]

  • Pick a movie Calvin wants to see. Any movie. Samples include The Cuisinart Murder of Central High and Vampire Sorority Babes.

Video Games[]

  • House of the Dead: Overkill is already an example in its own name alone, the game being a deliberate send-up of its parent franchise by means of turning it into a seventies exploitation film, with level subtitles such as Papa's Palace of Pain and Jailhouse Judgment.

Web Animation[]

Web Original[]

Western Animation[]