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"WARNING
The following video may contain language that some people may find crude, vulgar, or objectionable. The author makes no apologies for this. In fact, he is quite proud of it. This video is intended for mature audiences only. If you are uptight, puritanical, easily offended, or lacking a sense of humor, please stop reading and leave the Internet. Now."
— The Content Warning shown at the beginning of the majority of the first 100 episodes.note 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the trope page for Cinematic Excrement: currently in the process of ruining your life.

Cinematic Excrement is a movie review series starring the self-titled Smeghead (real name: Sean Moore) in which he rips apart the worst cinema has to offer, whether it be DTV, mockbuster, or blockbuster.

His schedule is generally one review a month, with each video being around 20–30 minutes in length. Remarkably enough, the style and formula of the show have remained completely unchanged since its debut all the way back in 2009 (save for some Early-Installment Weirdness in the first fifteen or so episodes), with only some rare and minor deviations.

In August 2018, he decided to marathon and review every winner of the Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Picture"; the final video of the marathon was released in December 2023. In the case of the films he had already reviewed, he did a "Second Look" video where he took another, more summarized look at the film to determine whether his criticism still held up.

In between episodes, he also uploads vlogs in which he reviews new movie releases.

While the series was formerly hosted on Blip, it is now available primarily on YouTube. The first 100 episodes have also been uploaded to Vimeo (see here), and Smeghead has recommended these uploads for fans who want to see videos in their full, original form in cases of deletions or modifications in the name of copyright infringement. The show also has a WordPress blog, mainly consisting of promoting new uploads, and Smeghead can also be found individually on Twitter.


Cinematic Excrement provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    A–D 
  • Accidental Misnaming: After noting that Gigli seemingly sets up a Running Gag of people mispronouncing the namesake protagonist's name (either as "giggly" or "jiggly"; the correct pronunciation is "jee-lee") only to drop it after one scene, Sean expresses his disappointment at the wasted potential and takes it upon himself to keep the gag going by mispronouncing the name in a variety of increasingly bizarre ways throughout his review.
  • Actor Allusion: In Left Behind (2014), when Sean mentions the film managed to get big stars for a Christian film (such as Nicolas Cage), he's disappointed when he also sees Chad Michael Murray is in it, although he refers to him as...
    Sean: Agent Thompson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I hope Peggy kicks you in the face.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: He'll concede when a joke in a movie is good.
  • Adaptation Dye-Job: Discussed in his review of Eragon. When Arya is shown to have red hair instead of black as described in the book, he explains why this is dumb: Arya's actress Sienna Guillory is a natural blonde, so her hair had to be deliberately colored different for the part, and she's invoked had her hair dyed black in other movies, such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
  • All Just a Dream: Discussed in his Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 review, of which he takes a decent portion to express his outrage towards the film pulling this with the battle between the vampires and Volturi, which included the death of major character Carlisle (which took Smeghead genuinely by surprise, since it didn't happen in the books), being revealed to be a vision, which he saw as an extreme cop-out.
  • Anti-Sue: invoked He doesn't use the exact term, but it fits his description of the protagonist of Shining Through (he does even refer to her as the opposite of a Mary Sue). Linda, a secretary-turned-spy in World War II, spends much of the story screwing up, but since she's the main character, she fails upwards. For example, under the cover identity of a cook, she botches a dinner for Nazi officials so badly it's a wonder no one ends up sick, but upon being fired, she's promptly hired as a nanny by one of them.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In his review of Blonde, he explains the dangers of unsupervised Internet access to the parents of any kids who may be watching (since the film he's covering is rated NC-17) by listing several examples of the "crazy shit" that can be found online.
    "There's white supremacists, flat-Earthers, pickup artists, gender criticals, people who thought Justice League was a good movie! This is not the kind of stuff that young, impressionable minds should be exposed to!"
  • As You Know: Briefly critiqued in his Second Look at The Last Airbender, where he notes that among the film's predominantly expository dialogue, the most telltale sign that M. Night Shyamalan "screwed up [his] storytelling" was by having Fire Lord Ozai start a line by outright quoting this trope verbatim.
    "Well, if we know, why are you telling us?"
  • Author Appeal: Given his love of combat sports both scripted (Professional Wrestling) and unscripted (Mixed Martial Arts), he's reviewed quite a few pro wrestling and MMA films, including the infamous No Holds Barred and Ready to Rumble as well as the first two films in the Never Back Down series. His love for wrestling has also shown up in other reviews via Shout-Outs such as:
    • Playing a clip of Ric Flair saying his Character Catchphrase "To be the man, you gotta beat the man!" in the review of the first Never Back Down film after discovering that the film's Arc Words are "To be the best, you gotta beat the best." He would bring up the catchphrase again when he reviewed the sequel to Never Back Down years later in 2013 after the Arc Words of the first movie were mentioned.
    • In The Stinger for the review of Birdemic 2: The Resurrection, putting a scene of Nathalie and Rod Corpsing followed by the caption "Nathalie and Rod corpsing? Send for the man!"note 
    • Invoking the infamously memetic clip of CZW wrestler Zandig shouting "JEEEZUS!"note  as The Stinger for the 2012: Doomsday review (since the film was a Christian mockbuster of 2012).
    • Referring to one of the Big Bad's bird-costumed henchmen in the Leonard Part 6 review as "Marty Scurll."
    • This eventually gets a hell of a payoff in the Holmes & Watson review, when a bad guy makes a pun about how he's "the brains", and his hulking Dragon is "the brawn", Sean remarks, "Oh, Braun Strowman", only to be revealed that the henchman is actually played by Braun Strowman.
  • Award Snub: invoked In his series of videos on Worst Picture winners, he usually dedicates his closing remarks to analyzing whether the films in question truly deserved the top (or bottom) Razzie by dissecting aspects of their creations as well as comparing them to their fellow nominees and/or other films released in the same year. Has its own page.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: He criticizes the Nanobot assassin from Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever to be this. While it is untraceable and makes the victim look like he had a heart attack, it has to be injected into the victim, by bullet or syringe. He says that conventional bullets or poison would work just as well.
  • Bait-and-Switch: In his review of Last Ounce of Courage, he shares, in detail, the only real-life example he found of a "War on Christmas", in the town of Johnsonville, Arizona:
    Smeghead: That year, the townfolk built a large, wooden nativity scene outside the city courthouse, much like they have done every year for thirty years. But that year, an attorney who had just moved into the area, one James Franklin, Esquire, filed a complaint with the city upon the discovering the nativity scene, claiming a large wooden structure in the hot, dry desert town he lived in would pose a safety and fire hazard, and when the city refused to remove the structure, he sued them and won. Now, it should be noted that Mr. Franklin was an avowed atheist and was not at all shy about expressing his rather negative view on religion in public, and many of the townsfolk thought his safety excuse was merely a cover for his personal bias, and it should also be noted the structure was inspected by the local fire chief and even an expert they brought in from out of town who both concluded the risk of fire by the structure was minimal at best. But the most important thing to remember about this particular scenario is (Beat) the town of Johnsonville doesn't exist, I just pulled that story out of my ass right now, there is no real-world example because the war on Christmas is not real! You idiot!
  • Bait-and-Switch Comment:
    • In his review of Kiara the Brave (a direct-to-video mockbuster of Brave), he states that the animation looks great... when compared to the animated sequence in UHF.
    • He repeats the trope years later in his review of Norm of the North, bringing the Kiara review full-circle.
      "The first thing you'll notice when watching Norm of the North is the animation looks great... when compared to Kiara the Brave."
  • Beat: In his earlier videos, before he really got his comedic timing down, Smeghead had a tendency to put uncomfortably long pauses between sentences. He takes a shot at himself for this during his Second Look at Jack and Jill.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Brought up in his review of Batman & Robin, where he notes how parents' backlash to the more violent aspects of Batman (1989) and Batman Returns led to executives pushing for a family-friendlier style with Joel Schumacher at the helm that culminated with Batman & Robin essentially being a super-long, cartoonish toy commercial.
    "Well, parents; you wanted them to tone down the violence, and in exchange, you got a bunch of snot-nosed little brats whining and begging you to buy them the latest Batman & Robin action figures. Was it worth it?"
  • Berserk Button:
    • People who are unfaithful to their spouses/partners seem to get Smeghead particularly riled up.
      • In the review for Inchon, he is completely disgusted with one of the subplots being about the affair of one of the main protagonists with a Japanese/Korean woman, only for said woman to die at the end of the film, after which he returns to his wife, with no consequences.
      • In the review for Bolero, while discussing the scene in which a character played by then 14-year-old Olivia d'Abo does a full-frontal nude scene, Smeghead brings up the unsavory implications that it might have something to do with the fact that the film's director John Derek met and began dating his wife Bo Derek when she was 16, and to top it off, it happened while he was still married to Linda Evans.
        Smeghead: Not only he was a creep; he was a cheatin' creep!
    • Using the sacrifices of soldiers to prop up your own point — particularly if it is a stupid point, as seen in his review of Last Ounce of Courage.
    • "War on Christmas" propaganda. Smeghead extensively took this narrative to task in his reviews for Last Ounce of Courage and Saving Christmas, and believed he was done with it; thus, when it resurfaced as a plot point in A Madea Christmasnote , it both took him by surprise and set him off.
  • Bigger Is Better in Bed: During the Bucky Larson review, Smeghead says that Bucky makes him feel pretty good about what he's packing.
    Smeghead: It's above-average... I'm pretty sure it is.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: invoked
  • Big "WHAT?!": When Smeghead hears Nathalie telling Rod "It's been a while since you went down on me" in Birdemic 2: The Resurrection.
  • Black Comedy: Smeghead's sense of humor occasionally dips into the macabre. See Suicide as Comedy below.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Discussed in That's My Boy, which starts with a Teacher/Student Romance that ends in the entire school catching the teacher and student in the act of sex, which falls more into child molestation and rape than anything...only for the school to give the student a standing ovation. Smeghead notes how unfunny the whole situation is, even though he believes that any subject matter can be made into comedy no matter how macabre but only if the audience is given a reason to find it funny, using George Carlin's "Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd" bit as a successful proof of the same type of joke that the film failed to pull off.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah: Striptease, being the 16th winner of the Razzie for Worst Picture and reviewed during Smeghead's series of Worst Picture reviews, earns a "This is Cinematic Excrement, in my ongoing quest yadda-yadda-yadda" given viewers should be familiar.
  • Book Ends: The main body of his review of A Madea Christmas opens with him admitting that he didn't find the Madea character to be all that funny from his first impression of hernote , and acknowledged fans who do find her funny by saying, "I get it...but I don't get it." Once he finishes the film, he states that while he found it to have largely met his expectations of terribleness, he has to give Tyler Perry an earnest "modicum of credit" for creating a character with a pop culture impact lasting over two decades. He admits that such a legacy can't be built without having a fanbase that genuinely loves your work, and once again acknowledges Madea fans by saying, "I don't get it...but I get it."
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Implemented in his description of Bill Cosby when reviewing Leonard Part 6, to be as honest a summary of the man as possible.
    "And what can you say about Bill Cosby that hasn't already been said? The man is a legend in the field of comedy, known for his incredibly funny stand-up routines, the long-running hit TV sitcom The Cosby Show, and for being a rapist."
  • Brick Joke: In the review for The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, he finds Christopher Lloyd shouting/yodeling gibberish so funny that he made it his ringtone. In his review of The Host (2008), it's revealed that it's still his ringtone when he gets angry e-mails after making a joke about the movie being so bad it killed Roger Ebert.
  • Catchphrase: Aside from his Signing-Off Catchphrase, he also has:
    • "Continuity: it's not a polite suggestion" whenever there is a continuity goof.
    • "Thanks for wasting my time, movie!" whenever there's a long scene just to pad out the running time.
    • "Our hero(es), ladies and gentlemen!" whenever the people the audience are supposed to be rooting for make a dick move.
    • "Don't worry, this will all make sense never." when plot details are brought up to never be resolved.
    • "There are four billion vaginas/three billion dicks on the planet, you can find another one!" or anything to that effect when a character is angsting after a breakup.
    • "This is my shocked face." whenever there's an obvious twist In-Universe.
    • "S/he takes the news surprisingly well." or something to that effect when someone has a violent or emotional outburst after receiving bad news.
    • "Because...reasons." whenever a character does something that makes no sense.
    • "You have a career!" for good actors that show up in bad movies, especially ones that take the film seriously.
    • "I am acting!" following particularly bizarre line readings, always delivered with the same inflections as the line in question.
  • Cathartic Scream: After Breaking Dawn Part 2's final battle is revealed as merely a vision, he lets out his anger by screaming into a pillow...for at least half an hour (according to the caption).
  • Caustic Critic: He doesn't hold back in delivering abrasive, scathing criticism towards anything he finds negative in a movie. However, in comparison to fellow YouTube movie reviewers like Adam Johnston or Ralph Sepi who are known to have a "take-no-prisoners" approach to being viciously caustic with their criticisms, Sean provides criticism through a calm demeanor (unless really provoked) and is willing to give a bad film credit for certain good elements it may have.
  • Censor Box:
    • Pretty much every scene in his Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star review uses a black box.
    • While discussing Cannibal Holocaust in his episode on the found footage genre, a scene of (real) turtle beheading from the film has a black box with a "SO VERY CENSORED" at the moment of impact.
    • In the Striptease review, the box has an added "NOPE".
    • In the Bolero review, the black box for the nude scene featuring then-underage Olivia d'Abo has a triple "NOPE".
  • Chekhov's Gunman: He refers to a character in Lady in the Water who only works out one half of his body "in the name of science or some such bullshit" who fulfills this role in the story as "Chekhov's Douchebag".
  • Christmas Episode: Almost every year since 2011, he's done one (or in some cases two) Christmas-themed reviews.
  • Christmas in July: Directly referred to his reviewing Saving Christmas in July 2016 (since he didn't want to wait the whole five months) as this.
  • Content Warnings: His videos regularly began with one of these, modified to be more of a Take That! to those they are warning rather than cautioning them to watch with discretion, but it has since changed to something of a Couch Gag.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: After taking Last Ounce of Courage to task by ripping apart its "War on Christmas" propaganda and the filmmakers' seeming persecution complex, once he gets to the end of the film, he decides to tell every single person involved in its production or promotion the most stinging thing they could hear..."Happy Holidays."
    "That will burn more than any insult I can possibly come up with."
  • Couch Gag:
    • His trademark content warning began changing each episode starting with his review of Planet of the Apes (2001) simplifying it to a bare minimumnote , and transitioned to usually being more of a comedic Take That! about the film in question, such as the episode about Bolero, an erotic film, cautioning that the movie "contains copious amounts of sex. Really, really bad sex." However, some episodes offer genuine warnings for films with serious subject matter.
      • The warning for the Mommie Dearest review is altered so that it cautions about the film featuring child abuse, and advises beforehand that Smeghead might not be the best person to discuss it.
      • The warning for his review of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane cautions that the film stars a comedian that loved to offend and thus might trigger some people. This is lampshaded by then adding "Hey, not all of these warnings can be funny."
      • The warning for Blonde is a straightforward viewer discretion advisory due to the film's mature themes and depictions of rape and suicide. It then adds "Hey, sometimes the warning isn't funny. Deal with it."
    • His introductions themselves tend to vary with every episode.
      Sean: Welcome to Cinematic Excrement. Shaken. Not stirred.
  • *Cough* Snark *Cough*: When noting how Pan's version of Peter Pan has dyslexia that only applies to English but can read the Neverland fairy language perfectly fine.
    "(cough) Percy Jackson! (cough) Sorry, I'm getting over a very sarcastic cold."
  • Country Matters: In his extended takedown of Jenny McCarthy for her anti-vaxxer stance during his review of Dirty Love (which she stars in), he says that she bought into the since-debunked study by Andrew Wakefield supporting that stance "because she's a stupid, ignorant, lobotomized cunt-puddle."
  • Curse Cut Short: He criticized Battleship doing this twice in the exact same way, saying if you have an F-bomb in your script, but you're going for a PG-13 rating, you should just cut it or else it'll come off as weak when you inevitably have to censor it.
  • Damned by Faint Praise:
    • In his review of Kiara the Brave (a direct-to-video mockbuster of Brave), he states that the animation looks great... when compared to the animated sequence in UHF. He recycles the joke in his review of Norm of the North, stating that it looks great when compared to Kiara the Brave.
    • He considers Poison Ivy to be the best villain in Batman & Robin...while also noting how her competition is an obnoxiously exaggerated Dumb Muscle character and a comically underdeveloped character with a penchant for horrible puns.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: Referenced when talking about the overly villainous nuns that run the orphanage in Pan.
    "If they had mustaches, I'm pretty sure they'd be twirling them constantly."
  • Dead Artists Are Better: His outlook on film defies this concept if the artist in question got up to scummy behavior in their lifetime. In his review of Bolero, he notes that the film's director John Derek cheated on his wife Linda Evans with his later wife Bo, who he began seeing when she was 16, and which may do something to explain him allowing a scene with gratuitous full-frontal nudity from the then 14-year-old Olivia d'Abo. After lining out these transgressions, Smeghead states the following:
    "If you had a problem with me mocking a dead man earlier in this video, I hope this has given you some perspective. Death does not magically make bad men good; it only makes them dead."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Almost on par with Brad Jones or Spoony.
  • Death by Adaptation: He criticizes its usage in The Snowman in regards to Katrine Bratt.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Lampshaded in Sucker Punch when Babydoll is going to do a Heroic Sacrifice to save Sweet Pea and tells her that it's actually her story and not Babydoll's. Smeghead jokes about this by saying, "That's why I was the main focus of the film."
  • Department of Redundancy Department: A Running Gag in several episodes is that he'll add the caption "Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department" whenever something redundant occurs in a movie. One such example is the "giant jumbo jellyfish" in Birdemic 2: The Resurrection. And yes, it is always referred to as that.
  • Designated Hero: In-Universe. He's discussed it in a few videos, and it seems to be a pet-peeve of his. In Never Back Down and its sequel, he notes the characters in the former are arrogant unlikable jerks, while in the second the heroes are not only too bland, but many of their more asshole-ish actions are simply glanced over. He even states that the villain in the sequel is the most interesting as he's got a character arc and his negative actions are treated as bad by the narrative.
  • Designated Villain: In-Universe. He discusses this in A Thousand Words regarding the lead, Jack. While he feels Jack is a terrible father, husband, businessman, and person, the movie keeps trying to push a Generation Xerox on him by saying he's become his father (who walked out on him and his mom). Sean feels that it's a bad comparison because as bad as Jack is, he's staying with his family and keeps them supported financially, which his own father never did.
  • Dude, Not Funny!:
    • His reaction to Danny DeVito's character talking about accidentally crushing a cat with a fridge in Deck the Halls. He felt the joke was disturbing and out of place in a family comedy.
    • His reaction to a majority of jokes in That's My Boy, from the child molestation-laden Teacher/Student Romance at the start to Donny's horrible job at fathering Todd being Played for Laughs.
    • Essentially his reaction to people calling Mommie Dearest an "unintentional comedy," due to Faye Dunaway Chewing the Scenery. He counters by pointing out how besides the silliness of Dunaway's performance, the movie itself is actually very disturbing due to its portrayal of Joan Crawford's abuse of her adopted children.
  • Dull Surprise: Invoked with his reactions to obvious twists.

    E–M 
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • His earliest episodes are significantly lower-grade in terms of camera and lighting quality, and it's clear that he hadn't yet solidified a comedic voice.
    • He didn't drop hints for his viewers about what movie he'll be reviewing next until his 18th episode (his review of Eragon, in which he hints that he'll be reviewing Dungeons and Dragons).
  • Easily Forgiven: Upon stating that a lot of Chris Evans's stuff as the Human Torch in Fantastic Four (2005) was improvised, the Smeghead calls Evans the worst to a picture of Evans as Johnny. When the picture shifts to one of Evans as Captain America,note  he proclaims he can't stay mad at Evans.
  • Everyone Has Standards: In his Surviving Christmas review, he notes that even though he dislikes George W. Bush, the Razzies stretching to make his appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 constitute a lead acting role just to slap him with the award for Worst Actor (which Ben Affleck lost as part of the former film) was "just lazy."
  • Evil Laugh: After an overly villainous nun in Pan orders Peter Pan to do an incredibly dangerous task (scaling a tall building with a dinghy ladder to clean gutters) and, when he asks about the task's safety, notes that all of the paperwork is in order if an orphan dies.
    "Jesus, lady. Just do your maniacal laugh and get it over with! You know you want to."
  • Excuse Plot: Sometimes uses these as a way to review a particular film.
  • Face Palm: Does one accompanied by a drumroll in his Sucker Punch review when a mission to retrieve a knife is represented through another mission to disarm a bomb that is only related to the real mission because the bomb is given the silly codename "Kitchen Knife".
  • Fan Disservice:
  • Fanservice: Makes a visual note of scenes invoking this trope throughout The Twilight Saga. Unsurprisingly, Jacob supplies most of them.
  • Flat "What": This is his initial response to the final battle in Breaking Dawn Part 2 turning out to be the vision Alice shows Aro.
  • Flipping the Bird:
    • After tearing into the Razzies for giving Ryan Kiera Armstrong a Worst Actress nomination for her lead role in Firestarter (2022) despite her being 12 at the time, Sean notes that although the nomination was eventually rescinded due to online backlash, it never should've happened in the first place. He then flips a bird to the 1100 voting members of the Golden Raspberry Foundation who voted for Armstrong to be nominated, as he considered them to be "totally okay with bullying a child".
      "Sit and spin."
    • In his review of Absolute Proof, a film which promotes the discredited theory that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and Democrats conspired to steal it from him, he matter-of-factly states three times that Trump did, in fact, lose the election. After the first time, he flips a bird (presumably to the film's director Mike Lindell, and anyone who would still cosign the theory); each time after, he flips two.
  • Foil: In comparing Showgirls with Striptease, Sean says the former is an unintentional comedy where only Gina Gershon is not taking it seriously, while the latter actually attempts to be a comedy where only Demi Moore treats it like it's serious and dramatic.
  • Freudian Slip: Sometimes uses them sarcastically. In his review of Bucky Larson, he notes that Adam Sandler came up with the idea for the film and shares writing credits with his "cronies- I mean, friends."
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • By the end of the Jem and the Holograms (2015) review, he's only able to refer to the film as JINO (Jem In Name Only).
    • Similarly, he refers to the infamous X-Men Origins: Wolverine version of Deadpool as DINO (Deadpool In Name Only).
    • When he does his Second Look at Catwoman, he's only able to refer to the film as CINO (Catwoman In Name Only).
  • Gratuitous German: The content warning of his 100th episode is swapped for the Funniest Joke in the World from Monty Python,note  and the big red "WARNING" is appropriately changed to "ACHTUNG".
  • Groin Attack: When reviewing The Host (2008), his "Soul" makes him punch himself in the groin after he tried to stop her.
  • Halfway Plot Switch:
    • The Ready to Rumble review was the first episode to be released in two parts (as opposed to being split into separate parts for time constraints). The first part was a review of the film. The second part, however, is Smeghead talking about the promotional stunt done to promote the film: having David Arquette win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
    • The Cocktail video is exactly 23 minutes long, but the review itself pretty much ends at the 10:42 mark, and the rest of the episode is Smeghead talking about the other Razzie nominees that year,note  since, while he agreed that Cocktail was a bad movie, he considered it just an invoked average bad movie, so he wanted to see if the other nominees were worse or not.note 
  • Ham and Cheese: invoked Has discussed the phenomenon of actors performing to this effect in bad movies on several occasions.
  • Hollywood Tourette's: He briefly takes the trope to task in his Gigli review after noting the character Brian having one such oversimplified condition. He notes how Tourette's manifests in a wide variety of tics, and of them, the "randomly screaming obscenities" tic used for comic purposes in most depictions of the condition in media is not seen nearly as often among afflicted in reality.
    "Every time we see Tourette's syndrome in Hollywood, it's always the same goddamn thing: 'Hey, nice weather we're having—SHIT DICK ASS!' (Beat) It gets old."
  • Hypocritical Humor: In his Howard the Duck review, he calls Howard weird for covering his walls with posters.note 
  • I Hate Past Me: His Jack and Jill Second Look has him noting that, as he watched his original review again, he finds looking back at his early videos often painful, highlighting that he had too many unnecessarily long pauses, and joking that "why any of you early subscribers kept watching after all these years, I'll never know".
  • In Name Only:
    • He uses this trope word for word when talking about Vernon in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014).
    • He sometimes refers to adaptations of stories or characters as abbreviated acronyms of "____ In Name Only" when said adaptation is so horrendous that he refuses to associate it with its source material.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: He tends to default to alcohol when the contents of a film get to be too much for him.
    • For his review of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, he replaces his usual sign-off with "I need a shot of whatever Banderas was drinking on set".
    • At the end of his review of Kiara the Brave, he replaces his usual sign-off with "I need a stiff drink..."
    • Throughout his review of Freddy Got Fingered, he refers to a flask of whiskey to get through explaining the film's more bizarre plot points. At first, he claims it'll help the film make more sense, but he eventually admits the film making sense is next to impossible — but the whiskey will make you more relaxed.
    • After reviewing Movie 43, Sean says he needs either another three-month break or a bottle of whiskey.
    • When he sees he's only ten minutes into the movie during his The Cat in the Hat review, he gives the camera a worried look while unscrewing the cap off of a flask.
    • While introducing Absolute Proof, he holds up a bottle of Absolut Vodka and says, "I'm going to need some absolute proof to get through this, let me tell ya."
  • Insult to Rocks:
    • In the review of The Cat in the Hat, when remarking about the cliché "jealous boyfriend of single parent tries to get the kid shipped off to boarding school" plot point the film uses, he says, "I would suggest the writers got their ideas from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Children's Movies, but that would be an insult to the greater complete idiots community."
    • In his Norm of the North review, when talking about the Lemmings, he states, "I would suggest this movie was written by five-year-olds, but that would be an insult to five-year-olds."
    • In his Meet the Spartans review, when showing the film's first gag (a Shrek baby projectile-vomiting profusely at an old man's face), he says, "I would suggest only 12-year-olds could possibly find this funny, but I think that would be an insult to 12-year-olds everywhere."
  • It's for a Book: In The Amityville Haunting, a son tries justifying filming his distraught mother (who has just witnessed a mover fall down the stairs to his death) by claiming he's making a documentary, which immediately pisses Smeghead off and makes him wish that whatever paranormal presence is haunting the house targets the son.
  • I Was Just Joking: When he made the joke that Jamie was having sex with her own brother in That's My Boy. He is rightfully disgusted by this once he's proven right.
  • Jaw Drop:
    • His reaction to Carlisle's death in Breaking Dawn: Part 2, considering it didn't happen in the books.
    • His reaction to his joking about Jamie having an affair with her brother actually being proven true in That's My Boy.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Jesus in the Spider-Man 3 review. While he shows absolutely no sympathy for Eddie, he does tell him that angsting and killing Peter will not change the fact that Gwen was never interested in him in the first place. He also points out that there are plenty of other women on the planet for Eddie to date if he wishes.
  • Kill It with Fire: Says this word for word when Donald Trump shows up in Ghosts Can't Do It.
  • Kubrick Stare: His angry reaction to a completely pointless and obnoxious recreation of the Budweiser "Whassup?" commercial in That's My Boy.
  • Large Ham: Captain Long John Thomas - a sheer contrast to Sean's regular persona, who at most yells when he's angry.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • In his Norm of the North review, he points out that the characters pointing out the ridiculousness of the film doesn't make it any less ridiculous.
    • In his Freddy Got Fingered review, he repeats his recurring No One Could Survive That! joke (see below) with a self-aware play-by-play.
      "Oh, well, I guess that's it. Movie over. Goodnight, everybody. And this is the overused joke where I walk off camera, pretending the movie is over, and then I walk back into frame looking dejected because of course it's not over. Why would it be over?"
  • Like Is, Like, a Comma: He points out Jubilee's excessive usage of this in The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: In-Universe; in his Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 review, he is taken aback and outraged by the vampires/Volturi battle being revealed as All Just a Dream, and spends a lot of time venting about how much of a cop-out it is.
  • Meme Acknowledgment: invoked Deconstructed in his review of Birdemic 2: The Resurrection. In this example, James Nguyen replicating iconic scenes and elements from the first movie makes it hard to tell which scenes are meant to be funny and which ones are unintentionally funny, killing the joke.
  • Metalhead: Smeghead has been seen wearing T-shirts for Opeth, Dream Theater, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, In Flames, and others (on top of album covers from some of these bands being seen put as posters on Smeghead's wall), would use heavy metal songs as the closing credits theme for his early videos, and occasionally, he would drop subtle references to heavy metal songs in his reviews, such as admitting to liking "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister in his Rock of Ages vlog, referring to Krull as the "most metal movie" he's ever reviewed, and in his Shining Through review, after being dismayed that the codename for Michael Douglas's character in the film is the rather generic "Trooper", he says that on the other hand, "it's also the name of one of the greatest metal songs of all time,note  so I guess it's not all bad."
  • Military Brat: As mentioned in his review of Battleship, Sean's dad is a U.S. Navy veteran.
  • MST3K Mantra: In-Universe; Smeghead uses "it's a dream, it's not supposed to make sense" throughout the Sucker Punch review to cope with the more nonsensical parts of the film. At one point, he has a Freudian Slip moment, accidentally says "lazy writing" instead of "a dream", and quickly corrects himself.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: In his Breaking Dawn - Part 1 review, he tries to add excitement to a padding scene where Bella gets her wedding makeup applied by replacing all audio with the Indiana Jones theme.
  • Murder Simulators: While he doesn't use the exact fallacy, he does mention something very similar in his review of Shining Through. He reasons that, because the film has its main character qualified to be a spy because she watched a lot of spy movies, then because of all the movies he's watched involving space travel,note  by that logic, he's qualified to be an astronaut.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg:
    • When introducing Sharknado, he points out the film's surprisingly star-studded cast (Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, John Hearn, Jason Simmons, Cassie Scerbo) and notes that "there are actually some talented people in this movie — and Tara Reid." However, he does admit that his dig was somewhat out of line, and even gives Reid the benefit of the doubt by wondering if the abysmal performance she turned in was invokeddone deliberately, as he found her acting in a skit on The Arsenio Hall Show parodying the film far better.
    • Similarly, in his Second Look at Battlefield Earth, when he discusses The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (one of the Worst Picture nominees the same year as Battlefield Earth), he describes the cast as consisting of "people who were far too good for this, and Stephen Baldwin."

    N–R 
  • Name McAdjective: During the Getaway review, the Selena Gomez character is renamed "Harpy McBitchface". In Birdemic, the hilariously bewigged nature nut becomes "Wiggy McTreehugger". Also, there's "Toothy McJackass" from 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, to which Smeghead said was his favorite character despite the name.
  • The Nicknamer:
    • He refers to the Big Bad's two minions in Kiara the Brave, Suddenly and Accidentally, as "Bob" and "Jake" due to finding their actual names too stupid to say more than about twice.
    • After having trouble keeping track of the names of the four main characters of Never Back Down 2, he starts referring to them as "Boxer" (Zack), "Wrestler" (Mike), "BigMcLargeHuge" (Tim), and "Red Flag" (Justin). He even nicknames the movie's love interest Eve as "Skittles."
    • In addition, in Getaway, he calls the characters of The Voice and The Kid "Not Blofeld" and "Harpy McBitchface" respectively.
    • In the review for Left Behind (2014), he claims the name of one of the main protagonists, Rayford Steele, was far too awesome for such a boring character and elects to call him "Jimmy" instead.
    • Has taken to calling M. Night Shyamalan "M. Night Shambles-on".
  • No One Could Survive That!: When a character gets into a predicament that would certainly result in their death, Smeghead often says something along the lines of "(Character) dies, the end!" and hastily leaves, only to grudgingly return and finish the rest of the review, as the character in fact survived somehow. He does this twice in his review of After Earth.
    "One of these days, that has to work!"
  • Oddball in the Series:
    • Episode 97, instead of targeting a specific film, offers a quick overview of Sean's thoughts on a whole film genre (Found Footage).
    • One video, instead of reviewing a film, had Smeghead review the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Spock's Brain". It's even listed as a "special review" rather than the usually numbered episodes.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: He seriously will not let Sony and every other movie chain forget how they tried to ban/unrelease The Interview despite releasing other films such as Team America: World Police and the Red Dawn remake and not freaking out over North Korea's offended nature in his Die Another Day review.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative:
    The Fantastic Four review: "Welcome to Cinematic Excrement: the best show on YouTube called Cinematic Excrement!"
  • Painting the Medium: For his review of Battlefield Earth, a film notorious for its overuse of the Dutch Angle, he opted to give his own camera a noticeable tilt.
  • Parody Retcon: Invoked when he gives James Nguyen props for taking the high road and not doing this when Birdemic became infamous for being So Bad, It's Good. Unlike what Tommy Wiseau did with The Room (2003), he respects Nguyen for sticking by his original vision of what the project was, and even when it became a laughingstock, he didn't try and pretend that reaction was intended all along.
  • Product Placement: Notes how gratuitous and unapologetically blatant it is in Meet the Spartans to the point that he suggests it should be called Meet the Sellouts.
  • A Rare Sentence:
    • He finds this to be the case when, after Bella uses a rock to draw just enough blood from her arm to distract a vampire in Eclipse, he says that she did something intelligent.
    • Also in Meet the Spartans when he says that Seltzer and Friedberg made a somewhat intelligent joke (by having a character named Councilman Traitoro, lampooning 300 for having characters that are very obviously villains from the moment you see them).
    • In The Amityville Haunting, he notes what is supposed to be the scene of a mover dead after falling down the stairs, although his head is nowhere near the puddle of ketchup-blood that apparently came from his head.
      Smeghead: I realize Asylum movies generally have two things working against them: money and time. But neither can excuse this level of incompetence! All the actor had to do was place his head in the ketchup. [Beat] That sentence would sound really weird out of context.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: In his video on Die Another Day, Smeghead claims that he's pretty sure avoiding landmines is more complicated than using a hovercraft to glide over them like in the film. As tested (and confirmed) by the Mythbusters, it really isn't.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Sean is an unapologetic fan of Jem, equipping him with enough personal experience to tear into its live-action adaptation Jem and the Holograms (2015). He explains that he was mostly interested in the science fiction aspects of the show, but nonetheless, he has no illusions about how much he enjoyed watching it as a kid.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • Delivers a particularly blistering rant towards two certain characters in Breaking Dawn. For context: Jacob has invited Charlie to come to see his daughter, Bella, who has recently been turned into a vampire. Edward is, of course, outraged, and starts laying into Jacob, asking him if he even considered the physical pain being in Charlie's presence will put Bella through, since being in a human's presence will only increase her vampiric thirst - like having 'a red hot poker shoved down her throat', in Edward's words. In any other setting with any other characters, we might just be on Bella and Edward's side. Here?
      Smeghead: Oh… oh, you glittery douche-nozzle! 'The physical pain you'll put Bella through?' Fuck Bella! What about Charlie? what about the pain you're gonna put him through? The pain he's already been through? Did you ever think of that, you diseased heap of rat rectum? This man has loved and cared for his daughter ever since she arrived in Forks; sure, he's not a perfect father — I don't think there is such a thing — but given the circumstances, I'd say he's done a damn good job. Not once have I doubted that he truly loves Bella and would do anything for her. And in exchange for his love, Bella has done nothing but treat him like absolute shit. Remember the time she up and left him with little warning in the first movie? Or the time she up and left him with no warning in the second? And now, after the last few weeks of putting the poor bastard through hell, while he worried about his daughter's health and well being: 'Sorry, Charlie, your daughter has died at the ripe old age of eighteen and you will never see her again.' Imagine what that's going to do to the poor man! And not just him; what about Bella's mother? And her stepfather? And her friends? You think they may just be a bit broken up by her passing?
    • A minor one but he gives a brutal one towards Sony in his Die Another Day review when he mentions their pulling The Interview from theaters because of North Korea's threats about it when other films got a free pass.
      Smeghead: Ah, remember the days when you could have a North Korean villain in a movie without having everyone completely losing their damn minds? My, how times have changed (shakes head). Yeah, I’m still a little pissed about what happened with The Interview, and I didn’t even like The Interview that much. But it was almost a year ago and… I should probably just let it go.

      Anyway, Zao takes a picture of Bond and — (record scratch noise) — no, you know what? I'm not gonna let it go! Sony Pictures and all the movie theater chains that pulled The Interview should still be shamed for what they did! It was stupid, it was cowardly and it was complete horseshit! When Die Another Day came out in 2002, the North Korea government wasn’t happy about it — though, let’s face it, they rarely have a reason to be happy nowadays — but no one was worried about any violent retaliation. And two years later, when Team America: World Police hit theaters with its very silly portrayal of Kim Jong-il, was there widespread panic and calls to ban the film? Was anyone worried about North Korean assassins trying to take out Trey Parker and Matt Stone? Hell no! Because that would be stupid! And in 2012, the Red Dawn remake portrayed the United States being invaded by North Korea. This was, of course, completely ridiculous, and it only happened because of a last-minute change; the invaders were originally going to be Chinese, but the studio ordered the change when they realized they could potentially lose a lot of money by alienating Chinese moviegoers, but again, no one was worried about any meaningful retaliation from North Korea. But some mysterious computer hackers get pissy about a couple of stoners making a stupid comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-un, and suddenly everyone in Hollywood considers North Korea a credible threat? Now they’re seriously worried about terrorist attacks on movie theaters by angry militants from Best Korea? Even when President Barack Obama himself told them they were overreacting! No way, I am not letting this go! No one should let this go! We should all remember just how stupid this was in order to ensure it does not happen again! Ever!

      (Beat) I get the feeling I’ve gone off track here.
    • His Worst Movie of 2017 review has him deliver one to the Golden Raspberry Award nominations for "Worst Actor/Actress," feeling that the actors and actresses were good, just in bad movies.
    • His response to the creators of Last Ounce of Courage attempting to use the sacrifices of soldiers who died in combat to justify their anti-"War on Christmas" propaganda:
      Smeghead: Seriously, this is their justification for their actions. They are fighting back in the war on Christmas with the men and women who have given their lives for this country. Fuck all of the way off. It's one thing to bitch and moan about the non-existent War on Christmas. It's stupid, but all you're doing is making yourselves look like fools and that's your problem. But once you start invoking the people who have paid the ultimate price in service of the United States of America just to prop up your stupid fucking persecution complex, that is where I draw the line. You do a disservice to all of the men and women who served this country by using their good names for such a worthless cause and for that, you should all hang your head in shame. Shame.
    • His response to Tyler Perry also including the "War on Christmas" as a plot point in A Madea Christmas, with a big company forcing a "Christmas jubilee" event to rename itself to a "holiday jubilee" and not contain any Jesus references, to which a character makes the "trying to take Christ out of Christmas" complaint verbatim:
      Smeghead: Oh, little town of Bethlehem, I just did Saving Christmas — for the second time! I thought I was done with this nonsense! The War on Christmas is - not - a - thing. No one is trying to take the "Christ" out of Christmas. No one is trying to stop you from saying "Merry Christmas". I said it at the top of this review, and you don't see Antifa drag queens breaking down my door to shove a candy cane up my ass or whatever the f*** conservatives think is supposed to happen when someone says "Merry Christmas". There is no War on Christmas, Tyler Perry, you stupid, stupid bastard.
  • Record Needle Scratch: Done after noting that while Movie 43 took a page from the MCU and DCEU of playing something during the credits, the movie was somehow even worse than the Dark Universe.
  • Review Ironic Echo:
    • In his review of After Earth, he uses an exchange between Cypher and Kitai to sum up the movie in 5 seconds.
      Kitai: That sucked.
      Cypher: That is correct.
    • From his review of Norm of the North:
      Director: We'll fix the rest in post! Anything can be fixed in post! In one of my movies, I wrote the plot in post!
      Smeghead: Oh, was it this one?
    • In his Pan review, after Hook tells Peter that considering he's just traveled to Neverland on a flying pirate ship, "'real' should be a very fluid concept for [him] right now", Smeghead ponders if he says that of Peter or the audience.
  • Running Gag:
    • Wire Jump of Doom
    • The "Celebrities Who Needed A Paycheck" counter.invoked
    • Inserting random "more fitting" music to a scene, which is more often than not "Yakety Sax".
    • Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department
    • "Pointless Sex Scene", in which the words flash on-screen and marching band music play during the scene in question.
    • "This is bad comedy!"
    • "Because… reasons."
    • "It all starts *cut to the movie* IIIIIIIIN SPAAAAAAACE!"
    • He sometimes lampoons films' nonsensical plots by reading them out as Mad Libs.
    • Calling Happy Madison regular Peter Dante as "The guy who appears in all of Adam Sandler's movies, but no one knows who he is."
    • "NEW YORK CITY?!"
    • In Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2: "It sure is refreshing to watch a horror movie where [insert positive feedback here]. Unfortunately, we're watching this instead."
  • Running Gagged: His joke of constantly denying A Madea Christmas existing finally comes to an end in the Saving Christmas relook, when he decides that, since he's gone through so many other terrible movies, it can’t be as bad as he’s making it out to be.

    S–Z 
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He attempts this for some of his reviews, especially for some of the worst movies.
  • Self-Deprecation: On several occasions, he hasn't been above poking fun at himself.
    • Given A Thousand Words features "Because I Got High" in a scene, Sean sings a Song Parody related to the film's quality. The parody continues in the credits, with the final consideration being "And now you know why I don't sing professionally" (as the lyrics go "Now I sound like a moron!", no less).
    • The opening warning of his Second Look at Jack and Jill advises viewers that "the following video may contain scenes of a man with an annoying voice. And we're not talking about the host."
  • Serial Escalation:
    • Notes the increase in main villain count within the original Batman film series, as Returns and Forever both had two (the Penguin and Catwoman in the former, and Two-Face and the Riddler in the latter), while Batman & Robin had three (Poison Ivy, Bane, and Mr. Freeze).
      Smeghead: Overkill much?
    • Smeghead says that one particularly ridiculous action scene in Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever cranks the stupid to a ridiculous degree.
  • Shouting Shooter: When noting an instance of this trope in a scene in Rambo: First Blood Part II where Rambo screams while gunning Viet Cong soldiers down from a helicopter, he sarcastically states, "It's a little-known fact that screaming while you shoot makes the bullets fly faster."
  • Show, Don't Tell:
    • He sees this as the main takeaway of a scene from After Earth in which Kitai is characterized as a skilled student but a poor fighter through a verbal instructor report, although this information could've more intuitively been shown to the audience.
      Smeghead: Mr. Shambles-on, a man who has been in Hollywood as long as you have should know by now that the rule is "Show, don't tell."
    • He also brings this up when making note of the overly subtle attitude The Book of Henry takes towards child abuse. While he understands it's a touchy subject, there is no actual evidence of the abuse shown other than a few offhand remarks about bruises, at one point driving Smeghead to believe there would be a reveal that there was no actual abuse.
  • Shown Their Work:
    • His dad is ex-navy, and Smeghead used his first-hand knowledge to explain why the protagonist of Battleship would never be able to enlist in the navy, let alone become a lieutenant, without a certain degree of Artistic License.
    • He also points out all the Sadly Mythtaken going on in Hercules in New York, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and The Legend of Hercules. The first one keeps using the names for Greek and Roman gods randomly (like calling Zeus "Zeus" but calling Poseidon "Neptune", not to mention having Samson, a BIBLICAL character, making a cameo), the second one uses Everybody Hates Hades (even though the book itself averted it) and has Persephone still in the Underworld during what's supposed to be her allotted time away, and the third one has several non-human beings (e.g. the centaur Chiron and the goddess Hebe) as humans, amongst other things.
    • Subverted and Played for Laughs in the Last Ounce of Courage review where he claims to have found one example of protests against a public nativity scene. He cites the example at length, with it containing many plausible-sounding details... and then admits he made the whole thing up because "the war on Christmas is not real!"
  • Shout-Out:
    • Summing up his thoughts on The Fantastic Four, Smeghead talks about Marvel's attempt at preventing the film from reaching public knowledge and points out that if they let the film be released, it would've simply failed and been promptly forgotten rather than become the cult legend it is today. He caps it all off by shouting "Streisand Effect, bitches!"
    • The content warning of his 100th episode is swapped for the Funniest Joke in the World from Monty Python,note  complete with the big red "WARNING" being appropriately changed to "ACHTUNG".
    • Beginning in 2021, Smeghead would follow any instance of him saying "To be fair..." with clips of characters from Letterkenny saying the same phrase in a drawn-out way.
  • Signing Off Catchphrase: Around 90% of the time, he ends videos with "I'm the Smeghead, and Hollywood can suck it."
  • Silver Fox: After showing the infamous Uhura strip scene in Star Trek V, Sean notes "Admit it, you'd still hit it."
  • Sound-Effect Bleep:
    • In Conan the Destroyer (Ep. 26), when talking about Blazing Saddles, he mentions the film's use of the N-word (which is censored), to which he even recites the Seven Words You Can't Say On Television, uncensored.
    • Also in Never Back Down 2 (Ep. 40), he calls the racist Southern police officer Officer Cletus instead of Officer H***y, to which he says he needs to fix it.
    • And, in Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day (Ep. 68), he remarks that a Mexican character doesn't like any words who has "s**c", to which he says he needs to fix it.
    • In light of YouTube monetization cracking down on swearing, while he is allotted one uncensored F-bomb a video, any more cursing is censored in this manner with a quack.
  • Spit Take: Invoked in his review of Birdemic 2: The Resurrection twice.
    • When Nathalie tells Rod "It's been a while since you went down on me." The first time the scene plays, Smeghead realizes he was completely unprepared; he grabs a cold water bottle, and asks for it to be replayed before taking a sip.
    • When the film shows how it wrote out Susan (one of the little kids from the original film; the other kid, Tony, returned in the sequel albeit briefly): she died from a disease contracted from the fish that Rod "cooked". Learning from his mistake, he takes a sip before the first playing of the scene.
  • Springtime for Hitler: Brought up in his review of Birdemic 2: The Resurrection when it seems like James Nguyen is intentionally trying to evoke the awfulness of the original, which struck gold due to being unintentionally awful.
    "If you try to fail and you succeed, what did you really do?"
  • Squee: At the end of his review of Color of Night, this is his reaction upon seeing what his next review is.
  • Squick: invoked If a moment is disturbing or gross enough, he will voice his disgust about it.
  • The Stinger: Most reviews have a short after-credits scene, usually Sean flubbing a line or a repeat of a funny scene from the movie.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Sean admits to finding Jace hot while mentioning that he is straight without missing a beat.
    "I'm completely heterosexual and I'd fuck him. Don't act like I'm the only one."
  • Subverted Catchphrase: He ends the After Earth review with a variant of his usual Signing Off Catchphrase:
    Sean: But until then, I'm the Smeghead, and if it allows us to avoid more movies like this one, I for one welcome the coming apocalypse.
  • Suckiness Is Painful: Frequently mentioned, such as how Dirty Love "hated me and wanted me to suffer", but the episode of The Love Guru opens with Sean admitting watching the Razzie winners (and fellow Worst Picture nominees) were taking his toll on him.
  • Suicide as Comedy: This used to be part of his brand of humor, mainly for his reviews of The Twilight Saga movies. He once asked his Magic Sarcastic Ball if the director of the first film would "off herself for the greater good" and asked if Bella would just slit her wrists rather than mope over Edward leaving her in an overly wangsty manner.
  • Swiss-Cheese Security: During his second look at Catwoman (2004), Smeghead notes this about a club that Patience goes to, wondering how she got past the bouncer while wielding both visibly sharp claws and a huge whip:
    Smeghead: I sometimes get stopped by security if I forget to take my mini-Swiss Army Knife off my keychain. Who the hell let her in the door?!
  • Take That!:
    • From his Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief review:
      Oh, God, you're being sucked into a Lady Gaga music video! Run! Run for your lives!
    • In the Battleship review, Smeghead reads an e-mail from his retired naval officer father answering a question of how long it takes to become a lieutenant in the US Navy and possible bars to eligibility. He writes that naval officers are required to have a college degree, "and I don't mean some online programme where hoodlums and safecrackers are welcome." For the sake of argument, Smeghead decides to assume that the film's protagonist, Alex, has a degree "from a reputable institution that does not allow hoodlums and safecrackers. So... not Arizona State."note 
    • The opening to his review of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! is an extended jab at Derek Savage and his film Cool Cat Saves the Kids. Smeghead claims that it's the film he's going to review in the episode, but he doesn't even finish saying the film's title before receiving a block notification, even though at that moment he still was recording the video, leading him to review Sharknado 3 as his plan B.
    • In Batman & Robin, when Poison Ivy states that the millions of potential casualties that would result from her initial proposal for Wayne Enterprises to be more eco-friendly are "acceptable losses", Smeghead asks if she has considered a job in politics, seeing as she'd fit right in.
    • In his review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, he is put off by the presence of actor Stephen Collins, who, by the time the video was released, had admitted on tape to molesting children. Not even bothering to make a joke of the matter, he simply expresses his contempt for the man and moves along.
    • In his Lady in the Water review, Smeghead tops off his description of M. Night Shyamalan as an egotist who believes that anyone who doesn't praise his genius is either unintelligent or has an ulterior motive by saying, "It's a wonder he hasn't run for president."
    • invoked In his Norm of the North review, when discussing Mr. Greene's plan to build condos in the Arctic:
      He even has investors! What idiot would invest in something like this?
      (a photo of Donald Trump appears for a split second)
      This is ridiculous!
    • In his Pan review, he interrupts the film's Opening Narration describing the titular Peter Pan as "a boy who would never grow up" to say "But enough about Donald Trump."
    • In the credits for his Plan 9 from Outer Space review (the 100th episode) he thanks Channel Awesome for not hiring him. Keep in mind that the review was released in later March 2018, right in the middle of the company's controversy.
    • In his review of Jupiter Ascending, Sean at one point compares a scene to a DMV from Hell, before stopping for a moment to think over what he just said and throwing his trademark "Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department" caption.
    • In his review of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, he uses Fox News as proof that catering to an audience of assholes can be a very lucrative business.
    • While describing Wild Wild West's Adaptational Jerkass treatment of the original show's character Miguelito Loveless, as the film's equivalent Arliss Loveless does not share Miguelito's trait of making his own brilliant inventions and rather kidnaps other brilliant inventors and takes full credit for their work, he describes Arliss as "like Elon Musk, except somehow douchier — which I didn't think was possible."
    • In his review of Surviving Christmas, Sean notes that, besides 2014's Razzie winner for Worst Picture Saving Christmas, there have only been two Christmas movies nominated for Worst Picture. One is Surviving Christmas, which Sean is initially skeptic to review, saying that while having heard it's terrible, he's not sure if it's enough to fulfill a review. However, as soon as he realizes that the other nominee was Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas, he immediately begins to review Surviving Christmas.
    • His Dirty Love review takes frequent shots at the film's star Jenny McCarthy for her anti-vaxxer activism. The timing of the episode's release could not have been better, since the review was released several months after the COVID-19 vaccine came out in America, and the reluctance of a significant chunk of the country's population to take it helped the anti-vaxxer movement go from fringe to mainstream. He ends up calling her a "stupid, ignorant, lobotomized cunt-puddle", a "sentient vial of anal seepage", a "brain-dead bimbo" and an "open sore", and further pokes fun at her in the thumbnail of his review, which swaps the film's tagline "Got dumped?" out for "Got vaxxed?".
      • Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced physician who released the since-debunked study that McCarthy based her claims on, is also not spared, with Smeghead adding text to a picture of him that reads, "There is a special place in Hell reserved for this asshole."
    • At one point in his review of The Love Guru, he lists a series of celebrities that he believes were punching far below their weight by appearing in the film — Morgan Freeman (albeit via voice-only cameo), Jim Gaffigan, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Verne Troyer, and Daniel Tosh. He then corrects himself on the lattermost person he mentioned.
      "Daniel Tosh is not too good for this movie. He belongs here...in Hell."
    • In his retrospective of The Twilight Saga, he pokes fun at the LGBT grooming conspiracy theory.
    • His review of Blonde contains several:
      • While chastising the parents of any kids who may be watching the review (since it's for an NC-17 film), he lists off several examples of the "crazy shit" that can be accessed online without supervision; the final example is "people who thought Justice League was a good movie". After the review was briefly taken down and re-uploaded, its new description includes a note that the re-upload was to fix "a minor but pretty stupid mistake"; it then immediately clarifies, "No, the mistake was not me saying Justice League isn't a good movie."
      • He refers to a large room full of mental patients as "transphobes who were mad at the Doctor Who specials."note 
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Discussed in his That's My Boy review, primarily since he has no idea how a teacher could ever reciprocate the attraction of one of their students because teenage boys are disgusting and stupid. He uses both his past as a disgusting and stupid teenage boy and his never outgrowing those traits as an adult as evidence.
  • Tempting Fate:
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Has made this complaint In-Universe whenever he knows that there was a bad change made to the source material in the adaptation.
    • While the Smeghead isn't a comic book fan,note  he points out that by having the Silver Surfer feel conflicted but continue to help Galactus devour planets despite having the power to stop Galactus at the cost of a Heroic Sacrifice, as opposed to the original comics (where the Surfer didn't care; humanity was so far beneath his master they were insignificant, to the point that destroying them was the equivalent of a human stepping on an anthill), it makes the Surfer come off as unsympathetic.
    • In his Age of Extinction review, he mentions that he's been waiting for the Dinobots to make their live-action debutnote ...and they ruined them by making them The Voiceless.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: At the end of his X-Men Origins: Wolverine review, he checks to see what won Worst Picture and when he sees what won, he gives this reaction as he realizes that is his next review.
  • Title Drop:
    • In some of his early reviews such as Twilight and Never Back Down, he does this to describe what the movies are like.
    • Meta: he says the name of the show in each episode's introduction, but it was more worked into the script of his debut episode. When discussing the intensely polarized reactions that Twilight produced, he said that it was seen by audiences as either "[a] cinematic masterpiece" or "cinematic excrement".
  • Unusual Euphemism: In his Cutthroat Island review, Captain Long John Thomas notes that the film starts with Geena Davis' character having just finished sex with a random man, to which he voices his jealousy and says, "I would swab that woman's deck any day."
  • Values Resonanceinvoked: Sean finds numerous plot points in The Postman that were ridiculed by audiences at the time — and likely would've been ridiculed by him in any other time period — to be eerily prophetic for 2020 politics. He stops to make special note of the film's depiction of the future's America being reduced to a white supremacist faction run by "a woefully inexperienced and unlikable jackass", alongside the postal service becoming a symbolic movement of anti-fascism. However, he clarifies that in spite of the film's relevance (however accidental), its execution is still silly enough to warrant his mockery.
  • Viewers Are Morons:
    • He judges Meet the Spartans extensively for its repeated breaking of the Don't Explain the Joke rule by stating the origins of its film references.
    • Meta example: at the start of the episode on Getaway, Smeghead notes how his attempt at the end of the previous episode to give a hint of the next episode's movie ("We're going to look at a movie that needs to get away. Far, far away.") flew over people's heads. In particular, he noted that people actually focused on the "far, far away" part instead and assumed that he would be riffing on a Shrek or Star Wars movie.
  • Waxing Lyrical: When introducing Under the Cherry Moon, Smeghead modifies the famous opening line of the film star Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy", points out how predictable the reference is, but says that he's practically legally obligated to reference the song when discussing Prince.
    "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called...Under the Cherry Moon."
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Invoked in his review of The Cat in the Hat. He even made an "Inappropriate Joke" counter to keep track of how "adult" the writing was.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Sean gives one to Col. Trautman, the Big Good of the Rambo franchise, for twice arranging for the titular character to drop into enemy territory on extremely sensitive and covert missions, while knowing Rambo was an unstable and very dangerous Shell-Shocked Veteran and One-Man Army, instead of leaving him to try to work out his issues in relative peace.
  • A Wizard Did It: Invoked word-for-word in his analysis video of found footage movies, when he says that's the only feasible explanation he can find for how the footage in Apollo 18 was recovered (considering the film takes place in space, and the cameras would've never made it back down to Earth).
    "That's a problem."
  • You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:

"I'm the Smeghead, and TV Tropes can suck it."

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