By the time you finish reading this page, he'll probably be dead... again.
Phelan Porteous is a Canadian guy that reviews really bad horror movies. Most of the titles of his videos are parodies of the titles of the movies with his name inserted somewhere. He also produces a sitcom/parody of Mortal Kombat called Mortal Komedy. He makes frequent use of "meta" humor, mocking many of the tropes inherent in the internet review show. He also has his own website, which can be found here, and is a part of That Guy With The Glasses.Starting with his review of House of the Dead, he seemed to have unofficially decided to start calling his review show "Phelous Who", since that title keeps popping up during a short credits sequence in homage to Doctor Who (and as part of the running gag that he keeps resurrecting as well as various time-related tomfoolery.) However, with his newer reviews, that seems to have been retired (one explanation he gave was that he wanted to make better use of the title cards drawn for his episodes.)
Tropes found in this show:
Aborted Arc: The review of Stephen King's Boogey Man, ends with Phelous regenerating into a cat, and one of his dead selves turning into Phelous D1, hinting at a new expansive storyline for the mid-Review sketches. The next review, Jeepers Creepers, starts out with Cat-Phelous turning into a human again via a Deus ex Machina, shorty after which he nonchalantly shoots Phelous D1, ending the storyline in less than 3 minutes.
Capitan Kirk: Whaddaya think I'm tryin' to do, ya fucking moron?
He admits the DVD Commentary for House of the Dead: Funny Version is funny, albeit unintentionally.
He thought the bratty kids getting blown up in Santa's Slay was pretty funny until they ruined it.
In his review of The Boogeyman, a little boy, after sticking his head through a window and shouting "BOOGEYMAN!", is killed pathetically when the window half heartedly closes on his neck. Phelous says that death scene almost makes up for everything else. Almost.
Almost any goofy surprised death face seems to cheer him up.
In Turtles Forever, he points out that 1987 Raphael's second breaking the fourth wall gag was pretty funny, but by that point was too pissed about the lack of respect with which the 1987 turtles were handled to laugh at it.
Adam Westing: Lampshaded at the end of Incubus when he says all the performances were terrible. Except for Tara Reid who did an excellent job playing Tara Reid.
Santa's Slay, starring Goldberg, has him repeatedly use Goldberg's wrestling theme whenever Santa shows up, along with other wrestling themes when appropriate, as well as wanting Gillberg to show up as Santa's evil elf.
The Bad Guy Wins: And occasionally "The Bad Guy is foiled for now, but lives to kill another day;" common themes in the films he reviews, usually responded to with an annoyed groan from Phelan.
The plot twist in I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer:
Phelous: A zombie fisherman. A zombie fisherman.A ZOMBIE FISHERMAN!?
Eli Roth and his writing style, particularly his reliance on Jerkass characters and using "gay" as an insult.
With Sub-Zero, if you make a fatality joke, he will call you out on it. Make one too many and he will consider killing you, as Phelous proved in his Anacondas 4 review.
Michelle from Pulse 2, since she plots to kill her daughter just so her ex-husband can't have custody.
From Pulse 3, there's also "THE INTERNET GHOST OF A RECORD PLAYER?!", which is insane enough to rival the zombie fisherman.
Anytime a bad movie references a better one. Taken to extreme levels in Dead & Deader.
His review of A Serbian Film is quite possibly his angriest review yet, taking particular umbrage at that film's Gorn and attempts at Refuge in Audacity.
It's not as bad as some of the other buttons, but Phelous rather dislikes horror movie teenagers/college students/cops/killers who are obsessed with drinking and partying; oftentimes wishing that they'd get killed already.
Big "NO!": Parodied during the ending of the Skinned Deep episode, when it turns out that the end credits of the movie play while the Final Girl screams "NOOOOOOOOO!" over and over again throughout the whole thing.
Phelous: NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOoooo way I'm doing that.
Played straight when he realizes Eli Roth wrote and directed Hostel II, unlike the second Cabin Fever.
"Blind Idiot" Translation: Since some of his reviews are of terrible foreign horror movies, he runs into this on occasion. He gets particularly confused for Nightmare City, an Italian zombie movie.
Brick Joke: During his review of Cry_Wolf, Phelous makes a prank call to the police. This leads to a cop shooting a fellow skit artist at the end of the review and then arresting Phelous.
In his Jeepers Creepers review, Phelous D1 claims part of his plan involved turning the show into one that reviews Romantic Comedies. At the start of the Amityville Horror review, another evil counterpart Phelous claims he reviews romantic comedies, before getting shot by Phelous.
Broken Record: The scene in Case 39 where Lily repeats "WHY EMILY" over and over again causes him to scream "shut up! SHUT UP!" and then dub her as saying "SILENT HILL" over and over again.
Many reviewers appear in his show in return (specially in Croc and House of Wax).
Camera Abuse: Finding out that Incubus was originally called Pulse drives him over the edge and he attacks the camera, flipping it over before composing himself.
Parodied again in his review of Quarantine (specifically the part where a guy kills a zombie by smashing the lens into its face). Phelous's camera breaks and we get a title card with the words "One new camera later..."
Canada, Eh?: Well, in the sense that he is Canadian, but his review persona doesn't fit much in the way of Canadian stereotypes.
Mortal Komedy takes place in "Oatworld". That's Canadian enough.
Cluster F-Bomb: In the Satan Claus review, Phelous turns the captain's exclamation of "Fuck! Fuck shit fuck!" into his catchphrase.
In the opening to his review of Mortal Komedy he screams profanity, until he realises he has to turn into his old self.
Completely Missing the Point: of Funny Games. In his original review he treated the anti-horror film as a simply bad horror film, apparently oblivious to its intended message. However, a great many episodes later he reviewed it again, focusing solely on its intended message, arguing that it's still a bad movie any way you slice it.
Continuity Snarl: Yeah, even Phelous doesn't know what's going on at this point.
Creepy Child: One of his major problems with Case 39 is that Lily is supposed to fit this trope, but comes off more as just an annoying brat.
Dancing Bear: In-universe, believes that The Human Centipede is basically this, saying that anyone curious about the premise might as well just look at a screenshot of the completed Human Centipede.
Dead All Along: Phelous often dies at the end of his reviews. Sometimes he reveals that he's not going to die because "I'm already dead!" *Evil Laugh*
Distaff Counterpart: Sort of. In Hostel 1 & 2 Reviews in 5 Seconds, his sister does the Hostel 2 portion. Making fun of how Hostel 2 is the same thing as the first movie only with female characters.
Linkara: No wonder one of us got really popular and the other one died a whole lot and does stupid meta jokes. Phelous: But — Linkara — I — Linkara: The one who died a lot and does stupid meta jokes is you. Phelous: Yes. I got it.
Cute Kitten: After the seventh Boogeyman movie, Phelous regenerated into his cat Tiniqua. He followed up with a review of Meow Mix and a "cameo" from his other cat Kisa. Phelous D1 later gets turned into the same cat.
Evil Counterpart: Several; there's Phelous D1 from the Ghost Ship and Dawn of the Living Dead review, a Phelous version of the villain from Incubus, a Silent Hill-style Nurse Phelous from his review of Silent Hill Homecoming and Case 39, and the romantic comedy reviewer "Selouph".
Evil Laugh: Phelous is rather entertained when the 'unlikable teen' in Cabin Fever 2 goes to cut his own arm off.
Eye Take: Arguably his funniest reaction ever to the events happening on screen in a movie he reviews was in his review of the Black Christmas remake, when the killer's mother rapes him(the killer, not Phelous). Phelous sits slack-jawed, eyes open wide in stupefied horror.
Fan Disservice: At the end of his Silent Hill Homecoming video: Phelous in one of the nurse outfits. Complete with short skirt.
Fore Shadowing: In his review of House of the Dead 2, when a character makes reference to wanting to have sex with a zombie, Phelous reacts by saying, "Contemplating Zombie rape?! I better never see anything that stupid again!" to which Sad Panda appears saying "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Fast forward a couple months to the La Horde review done alongside Sad Panda...
Freeze Frame Bonus: At the very last second of his Amityville Horror review, an image of his face pops up in his window.
Which serves as a Callback to other reviews during the Regen arc last year.
Gilligan Cut: In Stay Alive he refuses to play the Stay Alive game. Cut to him playing it.
Go Mad from the Revelation: Phelous breaks into a fit of insane laughter after it's revealed that the Big Bad of Skinned Deep is a headless bodybuilder wearing nothing but a pair of underwear that says "DYNOMITE!" on the front.
The line "You're not DEAD, are you?" from the 3D remake of Night of the Living Dead also sends him into hysterics.
His review of Cabin Fever 2 is full of this. Take your pick, his reaction to Party Cop returning, his reaction to Party Cop still being obsessed with partying, or his insane laughter over a scene where the girl cuts off the boy's infected hand with a buzzsaw and torches the wound.
From the Pulse 3 review: "The internet ghost of a record player? The internet ghost of a record player! The internet ghost of a record player?! It made me do the overhead spinning scream thing again!!!"
Taken to the extreme in Thankskilling when the killer turkey (which is more like a vulture) encounters a couple mid-coitus, kills the man and fucks the girl in the ass. Phelous falls to the ground, laughing or crying, for over a minute, before just staring at the camera in the next few scenes.
Gorn: Since he specializes in horror films, expect this to crop up from time to time in his reviews. Not all of them are for the squeamish. One prime example is Automaton Transfusion where a zombie rips out a fetus from a woman and eats it.
In his "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer, he warns the viewer to consider, in light of the scenes he's shown in previous episodes, the fact that this is the first time he's found it necessary to put up a content warning. The film he was reviewing? A Serbian Film.
Harmless Villain: Phelous D1 sure tries to hurt Phelous, but mostly just ends up getting humiliated.
Taken to an extreme in his reviews for House of the Dead, House of the Dead 2, and Dead and Deader (which was originally planned to be a sequel to House of the Dead) which he reviews back-to-back-to-back. Ellie Cornell played a role in all three, and Phelous incredulously comes up with a theory as to why.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Mike J in the Anacondas review, when he drinks the same poisoned tea he gave to Phelous.
Hostile Show Takeover: Phelous gets kicked out of his own 100th episode review by Obscurus Lupa, who finishes the review.
Selouph tried to take over Phelous's show twice, but Phelous violently takes it back each time.
Hypocritical Humor: Dena gets back at Phelous for showing the graphic amputation scene in his review of The Ruins by ripping his head off. Sub-Zero does a fatality on Phelous for making "TOO MANY MORTAL KOMBAT JOKES!"
Hypocritical Humor is generally a Running Gag with Phelous; often he'll either criticize a movie for doing something that he constantly does in his reviews, or criticize something and then do the same thing right after.
Ignored Epiphany: After making fun of a father who had just found his daughter's corpse in his review of the Stephen King Boogeyman Movie:
Phelous: Looks like she just got a cut off that sharp new release! (Beat)SLICING HER THROAT WITH A RECORD!!!
Insistent Terminology: After finding out that the titular website in Fear Dot Com is actually "feardotcom.com" he always refers to the movie as Fear Dot Com Dot Com.
Lets See You Do Better: At times, he demonstrates that he can actually do better special effects than the movies he reviews (case in point, his cheap editing was a damn close match to the "effects" from Birdemic).
Machinima: The "Resident Hazard" videos, which all consist of various lines from the first Resident Evil game spliced together to make the dialogue even more bizarre.
Medium Awareness: He likes making fun of "conversational" narratives, such as someone saying "Oh, hello!" to the camera. "Oh, hello! I didn't realize I put the camera near my door and left the camera running and edited it into my video!"
Meta Guy: To the point where Linkara punches him for it during their Airzone Solution video...and then he complains that he wasn't really punched and it didn't hurt. So Linkara promptly hits him for real.
Also assured the audience that the casting in the second Boogeyman movie was not him making a joke.
The Nth Doctor: Parodied in the "Funny Games Again" video, where Phelous gets shot and regenerates into a new form in the style of the Tenth Doctor. It was an April Fools joke, reset in the next video. Additionally, it's a parody of Replacement Scrappy, since New Phelous says he hates everything Phelous regularly does and isn't going to do it any more.
Official Couple: It was hinted at in some reviews, but in his Jack Frost review, he confirmed that he is dating Obscurus Lupa.
Heck, he basically said it during his review of Shredder.
Phelous: Yeah I say that to my girlfriend all the time. Glad you're not dead!
Once an Episode: Him dying in some way reminiscent of the movie he's currently reviewing, to the point where he's actually quite ambivalent towards his immanent demise.
Our Zombies Are Different: He's reviewed dozens of zombie movies, but the zombies in Nightmare City take the cake as far as being nebulously-defined. They run around like humans and kill other humans with guns, knives and whatever they've got available, yet despite being intelligent, they never speak. They do consume human flesh and blood, but seemingly as an afterthought. Some of them have more caked oatmeal on their faces than others; some seem almost normal. How new zombies are made is totally unexplained, and whether or not headshots are needed to kill them differs from scene to scene.
Portmanteau: "Phelous" is a combination of his real name, Phelan Porteous.
The title for each review is similarly a portmanteau of "Phelous" and the title of the movie, such as "Phinculous" for "Incubus."
Reality Ensues: In the Resident Evil: Afterlife, Phelous's friend shoots him with a real shotgun. Instead of dying humorously like in his older reviews, he just goes to the hospital.
Resurrective Immortality: Phelous dies in all kinds of comical ways, but always comes back to life. In a crossover with The Angry Joe Show, he gets killed and resurrected multiple times in a few minutes.
Rooting for the Empire:invoked In his reviews of Crocodile and Crocodile 2, he ended up cheering for the titular killer crocodiles.
Characters getting killed are sometimes presented as Mortal Kombat fatalities (complete with Sub-Zero appearing to chastise Phelous/punch Phelous in the face).
The Imogen Heap song "What'cha Say""Hide and Seek" playingwhen a character gets shot. Taken to ridiculous extremes in the Funny Games video, when Phelous and some of his friends start walking into the room and shooting each other, and the song plays every time one of them gets shot.
And then one of them pulls out a shotgun and shoots it, and the song is played again, only with SEVERAL of them overlaid.
Sometimes, if something really unpleasant happens plot-wise, he'll use a clip of Tina from Skinned Deep yelling "WHYYYYYYYY?!", complete with a goofy polygon with the word "Why?" written on it. This one started with his review of The Deaths of Ian Stone.
Often when there is a Red Shirt character that gets killed, Phelous would go, "And he/she dies."
In Wrong Turn 2, which takes place during the filming of a reality show, one main character eats another's granola bar to prove that he doesn't care about her. Phelous mourns the loss of the potential "Granola Bar Alliance" and cracks jokes about it for the rest of the film.
In his late-2011 reviews, a green blob-like "Ghost Babby" appears hidden on the title card. (Except for the Nightmare on Elm Street review, where it's front and center.)
One of his videos ends with him dying (at the end of Stay Alive), with the words, "I might regenerate... I don't know... it feels... different this time." The Fifth Doctor's last words!
The end of his review of Nightmare City features a parody/reenactment of the ending to Super Mario Bros. 2, complete with the soundtrack.
He did this earlier at the end of his review of Day of the Dead 2.
Sometimes he likes to subvert the expectations his fans have about his shout-outs. One time, he said that the viewer was probably expecting a clip of The Doctor saying "I don't want to go!" (the Tenth Doctor's last words). He instead shows a clip of the Third Doctor saying "I don't want to go."
The entire sketch on the end of his second Funny Games review is a tribute to the Tenth Doctor's departure.
"Boogeyman 2 in Danube Seconds" is a retelling of the movie in the style of Hans von Hozel.
"Yes, I know! This has been done before, but seriously—why would you put that in your movie?!WHY WOULD ANYONE WRITE THAT?!?!?!"
Soundtrack Dissonance: One of his often used gags is adding silly music to gory, (melo)dramatic and scary scenes.
In his review of Ghost Ship, he complains because the film itself plays inappropriate music, rendering this gag unnecessary.
In his review of Santa's Slay (wherein Goldberg played a killer Santa Claus), he had a habit of inserting Goldberg's WCW theme into scenes of Killer Santa (even dubbing in chants of "San-Ta! San-Ta!"). Until the movie actually starts playing a Suspiciously Similar Song version of the song...
"Oh, apparently I didn't even need to put his theme in there. The movie's gonna do it for me now!"
Space Whale Aesop: In his Fear Dot Com review, he states: "If you smoke... a little girl with powers will kill you."
Stable Time Loop: Triangle is a movie about a woman trapped in a series of time loops who becomes her own worst enemy and is Driven to Madness, so of course his review mirrors this by having a second Phelous popping around trying to stop himself from finishing the Triangle review.
Staying Alive: His returns to life lack a consistent explanation, and what reasons are given frequently make as much sense as the movies he reviews.
Talking to Himself: Taken to the point where he doesn't even really try to pretend he's playing two different characters, just two different Phelouses talking to each other. For example, he reveals at the end of Pulse 2 that he was really an "Internet TV Distortion Ghost" all along so he doesn't have to review Pulse 3. Another Phelous dressed as a Ghostbuster bursts into the room and zaps the ghost before taking over the review.
Take That: He makes a few subtle ones towards his fellow reviewers, lampooning ideas such as cameos and continuity in the reviews.
Probably more of an Affectionate Parody, especially because his reviews seem to have some sort of continuity and do feature cameos often.
On the less affectionate side of things, he's made a few subtle and not-so-subtle digs at the Irate Gamer's cereal reviews, culminating in kitty!Phelous' Meow Mix video.
What Could Have Been: In Dead and Deader he wonders what it would have been like if he had decided to not review that stupid House of the Dead quasi-sequel at all. Cue a flash to alternate-reality Phelous with glowing red eyes shrieking he needs to review a bad movie or he'll kill everyone.
What Have I Become? : Phelous in his Stephen King's The Boogeyman review after he realizes he's laughing at a jumpscare of a dead father to his son. For a whole second.
Who Writes This Crap?!: "This movie's camp value is.. over 9000? Who writes this crap? Oh right, I do"
In his review of Santa's Slay, he repeatedly comments on disliking a scene, only for it to cut to a similar scene from in Mortal Komedy.
In his House of the Dead 2 review, he starts the review by reviewing his own reviews, pointing out the inconsistencies in his apparent resurrections and why he would even try to review, considering he's only likely to die at the end.
Xanatos Roulette: One of his main complaints with Cry_Wolf was that Dodger really had no way of knowing how a number of things that her plan relied on would turn out, and simply got very lucky.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: "Hostel part 2 is the same thing as Hostel, but with women as the main characters. The End!" * Cut to credits* * Cut back to Phelous* "Yes, I don't know why I ever bother with that, it never works."
and is a part of That Guy With The Glasses.Starting with his review of House of the Dead, he seemed to have unofficially decided to start calling his review show "Phelous Who", since that title keeps popping up during a short credits sequence in homage to Doctor Who (and as part of the running gag that he keeps resurrecting as well as various time-related tomfoolery.) However, with his newer reviews, that seems to have been retired (one explanation he gave was that he wanted to make better use of the title cards drawn for his episodes.)
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