Hello, World Wide Web, I'm Decker Shado, the internet personality with the best hair.
Real name Benjamin Robitille, Decker Shado
is an internet reviewer hosted on Manic Expression and YouTube. He primarily specializes in horror, sci-fi and action movies, low-grade and otherwise. He often does crossover reviews with That Long-Haired Creepy Guy and has a second channel for gaming.
Decker Shado provides examples of:
- AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: Has a tendency to pronounce "review" as "RE-view" and "premise" as "pre-MISE".
- In his Blair Witch review, he continually pronounced "documentary" as "documen-terry."
- During his reviews of the Hellraiser films he consistently pronounces the puzzle box as the LAH-ment Configuration. As opposed to the Luh-ment Configuration.
- Watch basically any of his reviews, and odds are he'll mispronounce at least one actor's name.
- Accentuate the Negative: Will often rip a movie apart (because it's amusing) only to state he loved it in the wrap up.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Decker likes to do this now and then in his reviews.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing:
- After spending several reviews of Steven Seagal films making perfectly clear that he hates Seagal, he goes completely bonkers and spends a couple of minutes partying in celebration when he sees that Seagal's character gets killed about a third of the way of Executive Decision.
- He also does this with a great deal of Michael Myers's victims in Halloween (2007) and its sequel Halloween II (2009), due to just how unpleasant at best and despicable at worst the characters are, to the point where he calls Michael an Anti-Hero for killing them in gruesome ways.
- Arch-Enemy: The Asylum and, to a lesser extent, Steven Seagal.
- Artistic License – Biology: Decker brings this up himself in his review of The Predator in a blistering rant on the film's deeply flawed concept that autism is "the next stage in evolution," which anyone familiar with autism or evolution could tell you was nonsense.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Points out in his A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) review that the special effects for Freddy manifesting stretching his way out of a wall would be done with CGI today...then points out he's not sure WHY, as the practical effect was not only pretty good despite how simple it was, but likely cost much less than CGI would have. When the remake does just that, he comments that it was indeed both likely more expensive and looked much worse than simply using a sheet.
- Berserk Button:
- Found Footage Films. He mentions in his review of Tape 407 that he would prefer to spend his time reviewing "macarroni art" instead of watching them (and even when he mentions he consider The Blair Witch Project as an example of a good found footage film, he doesn't let up on the snark).
- If his review of The Predator bears any indication (it's one of the few times that he's been flat-out pissed), he doesn't have any love for misconception of mental handicapping in fiction, be it as an insult or an attempt at making someone Inspirationally Disadvantaged as awful as this movie does (by labeling autism "the next stage of human evolution").
- He has no love for The Asylum at all. His review of Poseidon Rex was made strictly on a dare to Creepy and he finishes the video plotting revenge for being forced to sit through it.
- He also has no love for Steven Seagal at all. His month of Seagal film reviews see him increasingly showing distress at doing it, culminating with him going "not him!" when he sees Seagal is in Executive Decision (and becoming gleeful when Seagal's character dies).
- Some of his crossovers with That Long-Haired Creepy Guy sees either something they're reviewing press either Creepy's, Chibi-Cthulu's, or bothnote or something Decker himself does press the buttonnote .
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment : He has his own variant, the Blue-Thonged Gay Stripper Moment.
- Big "NO!": He gives an extended one at the end of his Jigsaw review, having to pause for breath multiple times as his own Jigsaw killer loops the door closed.
- Big "WHAT?!": A frequent reaction to some of the more...unusual creative decisions made in films.
- Brain Bleach: Had serious trouble getting the idea of ape sex out of his head after The Summer of the Planet of the Apes.
- British Teeth: His upper-teeth are noticeably grey and gapped as a result of him suffering severe malnourishment for most of his developing years.
- Broke the Rating Scale: Played with but usually averted. Even for movies that Decker finds especially atrocious, he refuses to give them a grade of 0... inasmuch as he sometimes wishes he could for films such as Wishmaster 4. Despite his utter disgust for Hellraiser Revelations he also makes it a point to Creepy that even he can't rate the movie a 0 out of 5.
- Finally happened with Phantom of the Paradise, as he acknowledges the movie's influence on his personal development and found it difficult to give it an impartial numerical rating, deciding on "a miscellaneous allotment of Jessica Harper's mystical dancing out of arbitrary quantity of points".
- Catchphrase: Aside from his intro mentioned above, many review wrapups begin with "At the end of the day..." and almost every review ends with "And remember..." followed by a joke.
- He has also developed "And the body count begins/rises!" when someone dies in a movie.
- He also usually prefaces the conclusion of each movie with "Anyways/So/Therefore, happy ending!" Depending on the movie he's also used "mysterious", "tragic", "shitty", and "no loose ends" in place of "happy".
- Caustic Critic: Mostly averted, with his humour tending more to affectionately snarky than angry, but a few movies set him off, generally bad instalments in fanchises he likes. The Predator stands out as a sterling example.
- Cowboy Be Bop At His Computer: He calls out IGN's review of Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, citing how many of it's criticisms with the film are non-existant, making him wonder if they even watched the damn thing.
- Crossover: Used to have at least one a month with That Long-Haired Creepy Guy reviewing Japanese films, and a few others with other Manic Expressionists.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Decker alludes to having a... less-than-stellar childhood in his review of Joker, with his Seen It All response to Arthur's own abusive childhood.
Decker: And? No, no, don't get me wrong, that's a bad childhood to have. I should know. I mean, "malnourishment", that's a real kicker there. Did you know that if it goes on for a long time in a child's life - say, eight years or so - and they don't get certain vitamins, like Vitamin D, that can have long-lasting effects on their health, like, well into adulthood it could cause the teeth to not grow strong enough and they can just deteriorate and break apart and just be a complete fucking medical nightmare for the rest of their lives. Did you know that?- In his review of Halloween (2007), when he gets to the part where Loomis is giving a presentation about how a horrible upbringing will create "a psychopath that knows no boundaries", Decker remarks how by that logic, he should have committed familicide.
- Death Glare: That Long-Haired Creepy Guy, a bisexual man, gives one to Decker in their review of Gamera vs. Gyaos as the version they're reviewing is the one that spells Gyaos as "Gaes".
- Deliberate VHS Quality: Its usage in Found Footage Films as "there is something paranormal going on" symbolism (in lieu of showing the actual paranormal thing (that they may not have the budget for) on screen) is discussed in his review of Tape 407, and called a stupid trope because glitching in digital cameras (such as the ones used in that film) is very different from the glitching that shows in VHS cameras, and filmmakers very rarely seem to know the difference.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- In his Ssssssss review, he refuses to show a scene in which a snake is presumably killed in real life, as well as when a mongoose attacks and also possibly kills a King Cobra, and when a police officer caps a cobra in the head, or when the same mongoose kills the protagonist-turned snake. He possibly would have, if the movie actually had a "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" disclaimer.
- In general he's particularly disgusted by animal cruelty, even In-Universe.
- During his review of Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack!, he admits while he's not exactly a Mothra fan like Creepy, he likes her considerably better after she killed the robbers who were planning to drown a dog and saved said dog.
- In his review of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, he considers the slaying of Max's dog by Lord Humungus' gang the moment they crossed the
Moral Event Horizon (and then points out that, yeah, they had done slaughter and rape willy-nilly on-screen before that, but the killing of the dog was just too far). - Even before the main plot of The Last House on the Left kicks off, Decker is asking for the convicts to suffer Cruel and Unusual Deaths for killing a German Shephard during their escape.
- Decker was genuinely disturbed by I Spit on Your Grave and refused to show the more graphic scenes, even with black boxes, instead using dolls to indicate the general idea, looking uncomfortable doing even that. He was similarly perturbed by The Last House on the Left, as both movies were genuinely uncomfortable to watch because of the subject matter involved.
- He isn't happy with the ending of It: Chapter Two trying to glorify Stan's suicide.
- Creepy displays this in their review of Gamera vs. Gyaos, quickly giving a Death Glare upon learning the version they're reviewing spelled the title as "Gamera Vs. Gaes". Likewise, he's disgusted with Kia's Politically Incorrect Hero moment in Freddy vs. Jason.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The review of Halloween (2007) sees Michael Myers try to choke out Decker — only for Decker to enjoy it and a disgusted Myers to let go.
- Everything Is Racist: He uses this with the psychic in Jeepers Creepers, calling the monster racist for targeting the main black character first - then a black woman not being good enough for it when it spares her.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In his review with Creepy on Gamera vs. Gyaos, he has this moment commenting on the version they're watching spelling Gyaos as "Gaes", leading to a Death Glare by Creepy.
- Fat and Skinny: He's the skinny guy in every crossover review with Creepy.
- Facepalm: To a slightly worrying degree, which gets lampshaded in his review of the Saw franchise, as he gives himself progressively harder ones at the Idiot Ball's presence, culminating in him getting put into his own ironic trap as punishment for harming himself. Decker finally retired the gesture as of late 2021, as much as reviewing more Asylum films makes him sorely wish he could bring it back again to indicate his displeasure.
- Found Footage Films: One of his pet peeves, mostly because many of them overkill it with the use of Jitter Cam. He reviews Tape 407 in one of his Dinocembers as a perfect bad example of this kind of film and even if he mocks the living hell out of it, he classifies the much earlier The Blair Witch Project as an example of a well-made found-footage film that is weighted down by the large amounts of Franchise Original Sin. The wraparound story of his review of Blair Witch Project is a spoofed example of one.
- Gale-Force Sound: His yelled summer project announcement regularly send people flying.
- Gratuitous Japanese: For his review of Cowboy Bebop, he introduced himself in Japanese rather than his usual opening catchphrase. He also throws a plaintive "Sumimasen (sorry)?" after he points out that Shin Godzilla had the character of Kayoko Ann Patterson completely dubbed regardless of the fact the original actress spoke English for most of her lines (and it was pretty hard for her, on top of that).
- Hollywood Hacking: Constantly pointed out by Decker when a guest star hacks into his video's feed. The videos are being recorded normally, and there is no "feed" to tap into, as they claim they are doing.
- Incessant Music Madness: Decker's review of Poseidon Rex was already driving him nuts (it's a movie by The Asylum, after all), but the fact that the only song they could license with their super-low budget gets played again and again and again throughout the film does not helps at all.
- Insult to Rocks: He decries in his review of the film Tape 407 that it has dinosaur special effects The Asylum would be ashamed of.
- It's Been Done: Decker mentions in his review of The Lost World: Jurassic Park that making fun of the weird way Ian Malcolm calls his girlfriend's name ("Sa-RAH!") has been done by The Nostalgia Critic in his own review of the film and then the video cuts to the next scene as he seemingly is holding back a disappointed F-bomb.
- Jitter Cam: One of his pet peeves. He uses a Not Hyperbole disclaimer in his review of Tape 407 that when he says that people will try not to vomit when seeing the film, it's good advice because of the overkill use of this method. He also shows in a couple of other reviews (such as the one for The Blair Witch Project) that he loads up with Dramamine before seeing these kind of scenes.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He is the internet personality with the best hair, after all.
- Me's a Crowd: Another Decker occasionally butts in on his reviews, sporting glasses and having his hair tied back. Several jokes involve Decker talking to himself to enact humorous scenes. The last review of his Summer of Freddy vs. Jason ended up with three Deckers.Creepy: Really. Double Deckers. You think your life is the one that's gonna be made harder by this?
- Porn Names: One of the main running gags of the review of The Last Dinosaur is that the name "Masten Thrust" is such a blatant "porn star" name that not only does Creepy believes that Decker snuck a porno on him at first, but he also says that if he ever becomes a porn star that is the alias he will use.
- Running Gag: Not regular with him, but they still make an appearance:
- In his review of the 1999 film Virus, after the energy being that is the antagonist writes "I AM AWARE" in response to the protagonists asking what is it, Decker keeps calling it "Mr. Aware" throughout the rest of the review.
- Whenever he introduces a month-long project for Summer, he announces it with a shout so loud in each respective video that whoever's nearby reacts harshly (such as being tossed back).
- In his crossover review of The Last Dinosaur, both him and Creepy make notice that protagonist Masten Thrust enlisted as an Army private in World War II (with a newspaper clip to prove it) and give him increasing ranks as the review goes on, finishing with him being "Kaizer" Thrust.
- Constantly face palming at the things he considers stupid in the plot. Some of those palms look very painful.
- Due to overuse of the two phrases in the Visual Novels he's done Let's Plays of he's taken to hamming up the phrases "This is a terrible situation!" and "Not at all" to increasingly absurd levels.
- His review videos being constantly being hacked in by other reviewers... even when Decker mentions that the review is being recorded in a normal fashion and does not has a "live feed" for someone to hack into.
- Running Gagged: In at least one video (by the end of his Summer of the Planet Of The Apes) he could barely finish his version of the shouting Running Gag on that project because he suddenly started to cough.
- Sanity Slippage: The "Summer of Steven Seagal" saw him become increasingly unhinged as the reviews went on, courtesy of his hatred of the actor. Culminating in a couple of minutes of him dancing giddily when Seagal's character died in Executive Decision.
- Share the Male Pain: During his Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter review, he has this reaction to Jason killing one of his victims with an extremely brutal and painful-looking Groin Attack.
- Shared Universe: Due to some technicalities regarding cameos and crossovers, Decker's part of the Reviewaverse.
- Shout-Out: Frequently to various videogames. He lampshades his own interest in games in the introduction to his only videogame review to date for Typing of the Dead: Overkill.
- So Bad, It's Good: Decker is a self-confessed fan of cheesy bad movies.
- Self-Deprecation: In his review of The Lost World: Jurassic Park he admits he did a big goof in his previous review of Jurassic Park (he says that the lysine contingency that is mentioned in passing in the first film isn't mentioned again in any of the sequels, when it actually is a plot point of the second) before giving himself a big Dope Slap.
- Squick: He reviews some pretty gory, schlocky movies, but seemed especially bothered by a few scenes in the film "Sssssss," and one scene in "Friday the 13th," where it looked as though live snakes were killed to get the footage.
- Stunned Silence: Decker at first scoffs at the fandom joke that the monster from Alien fucked Lambert to death. He then replays the audio from the clip and is dumbstruck shocked by what the sound implies.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Does this a lot when it comes to movies that he's pretty certain are going to suck. Of special note is his review of The Predator, where he's practically having a Heroic BSoD.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Decker himself displays this, much to Michael Myers's disgust, in the review for Halloween (2007), getting off on Myers choking him.
- Unfortunate Implications: Brought up in his Star Wars: A New Hope review, in which he observes that many droids often give every impression of being sapient yet are still treated as property, even by the good guys.
- World of Weirdness: The Reviewaverse, in which he's made a few cameos, is full of crazy reviewers. Even his most regular co-host, Creepy, has a mini-Cthulhu as a friend.
- Working-Class Hero: Decker has made mention a few times that his regular work is handling stock filling at a local supermarket in the graveyard shift. As an example, in his review of Tape 407 he doesn't sees what's the big deal about celebrating that New Year Has Come because in his line of work midnight only means "two hours until lunch time". In his review of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, he reveals he worked in fast food, wore the hat that's part of the uniform, and expressed annoyance with Ricky's refusal to do likewise.
"Thank you all for watching; I've been Decker Shado, and remember... Tropes Are Tools, but TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life."
