James Rolfe

Overview

James D. Rolfe is a YouTube content creator and independent filmmaker who is widely known for his character of the Angry Video Game Nerd - an angry retro gamer with a foul mouth and scat fetish.

Rolfe's main channel, Cinemassacre, has over 3 million subscribers and an active fanbase.

Career

The Angry Video Game Nerd

While studying at the University of the Arts of Philadelphia in 2004, Rolfe conceptualized the character of the Angry Nintendo Nerd with the release of two short films about games of poor quality released for the Nintendo Entertainment System - Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After releasing two episodes onto his website, Rolfe planned to end the series but soon found a demand for more content.

Sometime in 2006, Rolfe was convinced by friend and collaborator Mike Matei to publicly release the first two episodes onto a YouTube channel called JamesNintendoNerd. At this point, the series was retitled from Bad NES Games to the Angry Nintendo Nerd after the release of subsequent episodes. When Rolfe began reviewing games from other consoles such as the Sega Genesis and Atari 2600, the series was ultimately renamed to the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Monster Madness

Ever since 2007, Rolfe has produced an annual review series called Monster Madness. The series features Rolfe as himself reviewing various horror films, usually with tied together by a core theme such as monsters or zombies. The series has premiered throughout every October until stalling in production by 2017.

Monster Madness returned in 2021, but to controversy surrounding plagiarism.

Board James

Board James is a web series that premiered in 2007 which features Rolfe in-character as the titular Board James, who first appears as an avid fan of a variety of board games. The series features short-form reviews of board games such as Mouse Trap, Crossfire, and Fireball Island. Two main characters were introduced to the series such as Motherfucker Mike and Bad Luck Bootsy.

The Board James series began to take a more sinister turn with the release of the Mr. Bucket episode, which features Mr. Bucket as a toy which wants to take James' balls. The episode is stylized like a short-form horror film and took the series in a much unexpected turn. This style was featured extensively in later Board James episodes, and created an impression that the Board James character is a psychopathic serial killer.

Rental Reviews

In 2018, Rolfe co-starred with Mike Matei, Justin Silverman, Kieran Fallon and Tony from Hack the Movies on a new series called Rental Reviews. The series mainly acted as a discussion for various movies from the 1980s and 1990s and was set in Cinemassacre Video - a fictional storefront akin to Blockbuster. Others personalities appeared in the series such as Macualay Culkin, Nathan Barnatt and ErinPlays.

Cinemassacre Podcast

The Cinemassacre Podcast was a brief series featuring Rolfe, Justin Silverman and Kieran Fallon which served as a general discussion podcast for a variety of subjects. The podcast was active throughout 2021 before it was quietly cancelled.

Trivia

• Rolfe's filmography consists of over 500 movies - though many of these being classed as movies is debatable.
• Rolfe is of Italian descent.