Consider the drag artist one of the great bastions of practical effects. The makeup, the costuming, the gags – there ain’t no AI here, baby. And for the last ten years, a curious breed of artist has been putting their best foot, claw, hoof and other monstrous appendages forward on THE BOULET BROTHERS’ DRAGULA.
What originally began as the show that was “too weird” for mainstream platforms before solidifying its future through a partnership with Shudder has since become an annual extravaganza of filth, horror and glamour. The majority of performers who come in search of cash prizes and the mantle of being the World’s Next Drag Supermonster will instead leave as a beautiful corpse stuffed inside a body bag, eliminated in their own personal mini-horror films. It’s equal parts Fear Factor and RuPaul’s Drag Race, splattered with genre stylings and presented in the gorgeously gory package that is unmistakably all Boulet.
Ahead of the season seven premiere October 27 on Shudder, Swanthula and Dracmorda Boulet discussed a decade of drag deviousness with RUE MORGUE.
This is the seventh season of THE BOULET BROTHERS’ DRAGULA, but the tenth season of the series overall. For the first few years, the show aired on various networks and streamers around the world, and then Shudder entered the picture and consolidated everything. How did that relationship get started and how important has it been to your brand?
Dracmorda Boulet: When we first launched the show, we initially designed it to live on Netflix. That was the goal. But we didn’t want to pitch it to Netflix because it’s so weird. We thought there’s no way any executive is going to go for this: there’s drag artists, but they’re like monsters, and there’s comedy, and then they’re fighting – and then we kill them. It’s crazy!
We decided to just make a little pilot season and go forward. And yes, there was OUTtv and different things in the interim. Then, three years from the first episode debuting, the show ended up on Netflix, which we were thrilled about. The issue was that all those international rights and all the things we had done before to get to where we were was problematic because, in order for Netflix to secure it worldwide, they would have to buy all that stuff out. And then enter AMC and Shudder. They were interested in having everything live on their platform. They became an ideal partner for us because they weren’t afraid to dig back into the old rights and work things out and make it to where Shudder was the home. We’re very thankful for that, and they’re excellent partners.
We’ve met your monsters for season seven, and they’re terrifying! As the show’s profile has expanded over the years, are their certain performers who are always on your radar and whom you make a real effort to secure?
Swanthula Boulet: It can be that. As the show has gone along, we’ve grown a little bit distant from what’s happening on the ground in the drag world. For many years, Drac and I were plugged in. We were doing events in LA. We were on stage every week. We knew what was happening in every city in the country and everyone around. Now, not as much, because we’ve taken to the production of the television show as the primary thing that we do. It’s kind of pulled us away from the traditional space where you would see drag artists: nightclubs. But there are still people that pierce that veil and start registering high on the radar. Or, if we’re scouring socials or someone from our team brings it to us and says, “take a look at this person,” we absolutely play a role in saying, “I see this is raw material and it’s incredible. They should be pursued.”
DB: I need to edit that a little, because I don’t want fans to think if they tag us on social media, we’ll look at their friend. I want to warn those people – your opinion of your friend is distorted! So, I don’t want to encourage fans to do that. You might be throwing your friend under the bus.
Part of the fun of the show is being exterminated: those genre-inspired kill scenes when a contestant has to go home. How do you decide what these are going to be, and do the performers view them as a bittersweet send-off?
DB: I hope that they see it as a love letter to them. You get to be a scream queen in your own horror movie. If you don’t like that, then you’re the problem!
SB: I think most of them do look forward to it.
DB: I think so, too. We usually film them after [the show]. It’s after they’ve had a couple of weeks to process it. But as far as how we decided them, this year was very easy because the entire theme of season seven is ‘80s VHS horror. All the death scenes were shot-for-shot recreations of famous kills from horror history. We’ve dabbled with that before, but it was always an interpretation. This year, it is not an interpretation; it’s very literal.
What are your respective favorite floor shows and eliminations from the past decade?
DB: “Nosferatu Beach Party” is one of my favorite floor show concepts. And one of my favorite exterminations was from season four, episode one, when Formelda Hyde and La Zavaleta were buried alive, due to the experience of making it. It was the first time we got to really lean into it. They were driven in a van, in the middle of the night, to the cemetery. It was in the middle of nowhere. And I made the person who drove not talk to them and play the Halloween soundtrack on repeat for the entire hour drive there. I wanted them to be fucking terrified when they get there. And buddy, it worked!
SB: I actually felt bad when the when the bugs started going in, because they were screaming and it was … it was a lot!
DB: From the outside, it’s so weird. You and your production friend are like, “Are we pulling this off?” You’re giggling, but to them it’s terrifying. But to us on the other side, we’re like, “You’ll be all right. It’s just a snake.”
SB: As far as challenges go, I’m going to agree with Drac: I think “Nosferatu Beach Party” is one of the most fun. We kind of riff on our “Monsters of Rock” challenge this season. It’s got a spin to it, which is very weird and I love it. It’s probably my favorite “Monsters of Rock,” even though it might not necessarily be my favorite “Monsters of Rock” performance. When you see it, you’ll know what I mean.
My favorite extermination is from season two – the Thunderdome. It was out in Wasteland Weekend when the girls are strapped in and they’re battling each other. I remember it so vividly. It’s one of my favorite things, and I think that’s because we could never redo it, right? At the time, the show was still small. We only had season one and people didn’t really know who we were or who these other queens were, so we could go out into public and be fully done and people didn’t necessarily register that we were filming. It was cool to do it live and out there in the wild.
DB: I agree. I don’t know if this show will ever have as raw a moment as that extermination. It was so odd to experience because we’re in the middle of Wasteland Weekend. People are shooting guns, driving these giant tanks and stuff around. And at the time, there weren’t cops or anything out there. It was kind of Mad Max world.
THE BOULET BROTHERS’ DRAGULA seventh season premieres on Shudder October 27.
