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Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/overkill_title.png
...of DOOM!

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 and Splatter Horror, 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. Compare the Mad Lib Thriller Title.

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

    open/close all folders 

Straight examples

    Anime & Manga 

    Comics 

    Fan Works 
  • This Marvel Cinematic Universe fic, Avenge Us. According to the author, its actual title is "Leyenar and avengers Bizarre Adventure:The Titan Empire Strikes Back 2 the Future of the last Crusade Revenge of the Fallen Ballad of the dusted heroes".

    Films — Live-Action 

    Gamebooks 

    Literature 

    Live Action TV 
  • Doctor Who went through a phase of this during its "Hammer Horror" period when what had until then been fairly tame titles suddenly had 'of Evil', 'of Doom', 'of Death', 'of Blood', 'of Terror', etcetera appended to everything, with the most laughably redundant title being "The Deadly Assassin".
  • Bullet in the Face.

    Music 

     Professional Wrestling 
  • The Japanese hardcore wrestling promotion FMW regularly featured insane, violent Gimmick Matches with descriptions that fit this trope.
    • At the 7th Anniversary Show, May 5, 1996, Terry Funk and Mr. Pogo d. Masato Tanaka and Hayabusa in a "No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Time Bomb Land Mine Double Hellnote  Death Match."
    • At the 8th Anniversary Show (held on April 29, 1997, instead of the usual date of May 5), Megumi Kudo defeated Shark Tsuchiya in a "No Rope 200 Volt double hell Double Barbed Wire Barricade Double Landmine Crushed Glass Electrical Barbed Wire Death Match" to win the FMW World Women's Title.
    • At the 10th Anniversary Show, which was held on November 23, 1999 as their November PPV, FMW WEW Singles Champion Masato Tanaka d. Kodo Fuyuki in a "Loser Leaves FMW Electrical Thunderbolt Cage Death Match."

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 

    Visual Novels 
  • Gore Screaming Show (Although, bizarrely enough, it's the name of a character that the main villainess had given the title character after a movie she knew of that was an example of this trope.)

Parodies

    Anime and Manga 
  • One episode of the Sgt. Frog anime (or at least the Funimation dub) had one episode titled "Blood Violence Death Kill! Rated R."

    Comedy 
  • Adal Ramones, in one of his monologues, mentions that every man's favorite option when choosing a movie to watch would be "Pesadilla en la Calle del Infierno 17: Freddy se Viene del más Allá" ("Nightmare in Hell's Street 17: Freddy comes back from the Afterlife")

    Comic Strips 
  • Calvin and Hobbes: Pick a movie Calvin wants to see. Any movie. Samples include Attack of the Co-Ed Cannibals, The Cuisinart Murder of Central High and Vampire Sorority Babes.

    Fanfiction 

    Films — Live-Action 

    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)
  • Craig Shaw Gardner's Cineverse Cycle: Slaves of the Volcano God, Bride of the Slime Monster and Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies.
  • Like a Fish Understands a Tree has an in-universe example. The company that developed Nephilim Caves originally invented their Living Program technology for an earlier game called Megadeath.

    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, mocking the fact that the movie they were MiSTing was a horror anthology awkwardly shoehorned into the role of a family film.
  • 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 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.
  • Kill It Before It Dies from Charmed.
  • The Kids in the Hall has a novelist whose second book is: There's a Spider on Your Back! That wasn't just the title — it was the whole book.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus has "Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror," which turns out to be an interview with a man who speaks in anagrams.
  • Mr. Show had "Return of the Curse of the Creature's Ghost". The characters weren't sure if they should be afraid of the curse, the ghost, or the creature.
  • In an episode of The Goodies, the Goodies are watching films made by Pinewood Studios after buying the studio. One of these films is called Kung Fu With A Bucket Of Blood And A Bath Full Of Giblets. Tim refuses to watch it.
  • In an early episode of Boy Meets World, Cory and Shawn try to watch I'm Blowing Up Your Head Part 6: Stumpy's Revenge while they're left home with a babysitter.
  • The Young Ones episode "Nasty" features the boys attempting to watch the Video Nasty Sex with the Headless Corpse of the Virgin Astronaut.
    • "Bambi" also mentioned Bambi Goes Crazy-Ape Bonkers With His Power-Drill And Sex.

    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".
  • Rose and the Arrangement's "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati."
  • Norman Greenbaum's "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago."
  • Weird Al's "Attack of the Radioactive Mutant Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars."
  • The Dead Milkmen's "(Theme from) Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern."
  • One of the best examples of this trope in music would be Impaled Northern Moonforest, a side project by Anal Cunt's Seth Putnam: they have released a full album of Stylistic Suck acoustic black metal songs with names like "Awaiting the Blasphemous Abomination of the Necroyeti While Sailing on the Northernmost Fjord of Xzfgiiizmtsath".

    Video Games 
  • BLOODCRUSHER II, complete with random subtitles (THE SPINEBREAKER FILES) to enhance the effect. Appropriate, as the game is a send-up of '90s shooters.
  • The 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.
  • The bonus material in Mishap: An Accidental Haunting, due to the fact that the first boss is the ghost of a Hollywood ex-"scream queen," includes several posters for flicks such as Invasion of the Alien-Brained Fly Men and Attack of the Zombie Taxman.
  • The Curse of the Revenge of the Ghost of the Evil Chicken of Doom...Returns!
  • Maniac Mansion features arcade games called "Die, Enemy, Die" and "Kill Thrill."
  • Turbo Overkill, whose title refers to it's hero, Johnny Overkill - a Cyborg One-Man Army who absolutely lives up to his name.

    Web Animation 

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Death: Dead Again, One More Time is the title of a fictitious Dean Koontz novel in Squidbillies.
  • After The Angry Beavers eat themselves sick on junk food at the end of "Food of the Clods", they sit back to watch some TV, only to find the next movie on is The Oozing Flesh of the Rotting Hand. Cue Vomit Discretion Shot.

Alternative Title(s): Overkill Title

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