Art is a fickle mistress – even more so than The Boulet Brothers, Dracmorda and Swanthula. While seated in the judges’ thrones on The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, The Boulets cultivate the next great “supermonsters” of drag, filth, horror, and glamor, weeding out the other contestants with mentally and physically taxing “extermination challenges.” Yet, their judgment is fair and firm, with each assessment following Dracmorda reminding them that their drag is art and art is subjective. Art, as the Boulets tell HollywoodLife when discussing their Halfway to Halloween TV Special, is also a bit of a bitch; especially regarding plans and deadlines.
“We had a different concept initially, and then inspiration struck us,” Swanthula tells HL. “I think it was the week between Christmas and New Year we’re like, ‘okay, wait, there’s that, and it’s good. However, what about this?'” In the witching hour, the Boulets had discovered what the project wanted to be, forcing them to switch gears at the last minute. “So we had a very truncated amount of time. But, we were super-inspired, and that’s always the most combustive special ingredient in any recipe of what we create. If the inspiration is at level 10, we push through, and I think that’s the fuel that drove us to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to do this.’ And now the end product is just; it’s so fun.”
The Boulet Brothers’ Halfway to Halloween TV Special, premiering on Shudder/AMC+ (4/26 @ 12am EST / 9pm PST), sees the Boulets venture into scripted content with the star-studded variety special. While skits and scenes bookend each Dragula episode, Halfway to Halloween takes their creative vision one step beyond. It’s the 1976 Paul Lynde Halloween Special by way of Fangoria and Rue Morgue. The special exists in that special place on the border of comedy and tragedy, of camp and creepy, of horror and humor. Though, Dracmorda assures the Uglies – the affectionate term for the Boulets’ fans – that it will be good and “dark.”
“A lot of times. it’s presented in a way that it would feel very like campy and parody, but the jokes are so dark that there’s no risk of that,” she says. “I’ll just give you one tease. There’s a commercial in the special for an Easy Cake Cremation Oven so you can kill your parents and discard the body. So if that gives you any kind of clue.”
“And we have legitimate children in the clip,” adds Swanthula. “So when we let a friend of ours have a little tease. We were at dinner a couple of weeks back, and Drac went to her side of the table. I didn’t see what was on the phone. I could just see her reaction, and the Easy Cake Cremation Oven commercial came on, and it was just — face crack, big eyes, and then hysterical laughter cause it’s just done in such a deadpan way. So good.”
“There’s a lot of content that when we wrote it, I was like—” says Dracmorda before pausing. “It was one of those late nights, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I love this, I love this.’ And then I’m sitting there looking at it, and I’m like, ‘Am I weird? Is this too much? There’s no way. Like, is this too weird?'” Swanthula laughs at this confession.
“I was like, ‘Are people going to see this and be like, what’s wrong with you all?’ But no. I started showing clips and scripts to different people with the network, and they were laughing really hard. So I was like, ‘Okay, great.’ I struck the right balance cause I was definitely nervous about it.”
This creativity was allowed to thrive thanks to the positive environment provided by AMC and Shudder, the home of Dragula since 2021. Like Median of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, Shudder’s streaming platform has become a haven for frights, fiends, and all things mainstream society might deem “too weird.”
“They’re such great partners,” Dracmorda tells HL. “They believe in our work at this point. They just really don’t even say anything to us — they just want to see what we come up with. And they’ve literally never given us one note on anything. So they just let us go crazy. And that’s one of the things that made them attractive to us as a partner.”
“I think we both enjoyed about them as creators is they just wanted to elevate and celebrate what we did,” added Dracmorda. “They didn’t want to change it. They’ll come on set, they’ll be a part of it, they laugh and have fun and get behind the scenes, but they don’t really mess with our creative vision.”
Dracmorda explains that the Boulets have a deal with Shudder/AMC to produce multiple pieces of content, “but they didn’t tell us what needed to be.” She adds, “We just got inspired, the two of us, and were like, ‘Oh my God, we really want to do this. Can we pull this off?'” Never one to back down from a challenge, the Boulets went for it. “And I think the end product is just — I’m so proud of it,” says Dracmorda. “I think everyone’s going to love it.”
The lineup backs up the Boulets. The announced guests include David Dastmalchian (Dune, Suicide Squad, and co-producer on the special), Kevin Smith (Clerks, Tusk), Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek), Taran Killam (SNL), Matthew Lillard (Scooby Doo, Hackers, the Scream film series), Jorge Garcia (Lost), Steve Agee (Peacemaker), Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, Chopping Mall), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Katya (RuPaul’s Drag Race), Derek Mears (Friday the 13th, Swamp Thing), Satanic doo-wop band Twin Temple, and Dragula alums Kendra Onixx, Koco Caine and Melissa Befierce.
“We’ve done drag-focused content for years,” says Dracmorda,” and we have other ideas. There are other things we do, and this is our break from that. So, [Halfway to Halloween] was us expanding our footprint and doing other things. We’re artists at heart, and we get inspired by other things, so we don’t want to just produce drag content or queer content.”
This isn’t to say that the Boulets are eschewing drag. In the modern climate, where Republican-controlled legislatures pass bans and restrictions on drag performances (which many see as a covert attack on transgender rights and visibility), the Boulets aren’t putting their gowns and makeup back in the closet.
“Don’t forget – Hi, we are drag artists, and we are hosts of the show,” Dracmorda says matter-of-factly, getting a laugh from her partner, Swanthula.
Halloween has long been an LGBTQ holiday, and the queer community views it as a night of “celebration of sexual liberation,” per the Advocate. The Boulet Brothers’ Halfway To Halloween TV Special truly embraces the spirit. While some might think Halloween exists no further beyond Jack-to-lanterns, candy, or skeletal decorations, Gilda Radner summed it up when she voiced the title character of 1978’s Witch’s Night Out: “Every day we go about our lives in the same old way; But, once a year, we can be whatever and whomever we please. Pretend! Let your secret fancies run wild!”
This isn’t to say that Kevin Smith will unveil his drag persona, “Silent Bob the Drag Queen” (though you must watch to find out.) It’s more the freedom to experiment with being someone different, that’s what beats at the black-and-orange heart of the special. The Boulets let their guests play with a closet of costumes while embracing those “secret” desires and – in the case of one horror icon — go in a completely different direction.
At 6’5″, Derek Mears’ imposing figure stood behind Jason Voorhees’ hockey mask in the 2009 reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise. He brought Swamp Thing to life in the horror-themed 2019 series based on the DC character. His filmography includes 2006’s The Hills Have Eyes, Predators, Freaks of Nature, and the 2010’s series, Sleepy Hollow. His horror bona fides are unquestionable, but his role in Halfway To Halloween is something not many would expect. “The original script we pitched him for this was a killer kind of thing,” Dracmorda tells HL. “And he’s like, ‘I love you guys. Me and my wife are huge fans of your show. I don’t want to be a killer again.’ And I’m like, ‘let me get back to you.'”
Whereas some might be irked by such a refusal, Drac says she loved that reaction from Derek. “That’s what I want them to,” she says of the special’s guest stars. “I want them to tell me what they really wanted to do because this is just a fun project — have fun with it! It’s almost like a Halloween social. All your friends get together and have a big time. So I don’t want people doing stuff they don’t want to do. It’s not a job per se.”
“So when we came back and wrote him a very comedic script, and he knocked it out of the park,” she adds. “It’s a tease with the killer thing, but then it’s actually not; you’ll see when you watch it.”
“It’s so good,” adds Swanthula.
“Felissa [Rose] too,” Dracmorda says. “She surprised us in her comedy as well.”
“It’s her energy,” says Swanthula. “We had her out in the wood, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is so amazing. We have Felissa Woods back at this kind of campground moment because. Think back to her movie [Sleepaway Camp], it just left its mark on everybody. To have her back in the woods was such a thing. But then how her energy and comedy and just how funny she was — all day! and we were out there all day! It was just a joy to have her on set.”
“She’s been on Boulet Brothers’ Dragula before as a guest judge, and her energy was so great,” says Dracmorda. “We wanted to invite people onto this special who we feel have always brought good energy, and are positive and fund and are down to do whatever. And she was at the top of our list because our interactions with her have always been great – not only on set, but we’ll run into her at horror conventions. And she makes every appearance she does feel special. You would think it’s the annual gala every time you see her at a convention. She has good energy, she’s fun, and she likes to party.”
“It’s a party,” says Swanthula. “With her all day long, I’m like, ‘where does she get her energy from?’ Please give me some of that because it’s great all day.”
“We felt if we involve people that have good energy, then the outcome would be good. And that’s what happened,” adds Dracamorda. “So we just involve people that we love, and Felissa was at the top of our list. And of course, the whole campground — which you’ll see what that’s all about, but it’s fun! It was one of those fan moments. It was like we get to bring Felissa Rose to a campground. That satiates a fan thing for us.”
The Boulets will soon satiate their own fans. Halfway to Halloween is just the start. How about a feature-length film? “We are going to do that,” says Dracmorda,” and we know what we want to do, but this wasn’t the right time to do that.” The scheduling didn’t work out for the first entry into the Boulet Brothers Cinematic Universe.
“I don’t want to do it under pressure,” adds Dracmorda. “I want us to really take our time and not feel pressured, to be honest. Every piece of content we’ve ever created has been under duress in terms of a timeframe. And I don’t want that to be part of our first feature.”
“Time is a very powerful enemy,” adds Swanthula. “She’s like our nemesis because we have tons of ideas, and the path is open for us to create, but time comes in and just tries to choke you a little bit, and sometimes she’s got really good at it.”
“What I’ll say about that is, despite doing this under the duress of the time constraint, it made for some really creatively satisfying pieces of content,” adds Dracmorda.” So at the same time, I think we work really well under duress. And so it’s kind of hard because you’re like, ‘well, look what we’re able to do. It’s the pressure on the coal that makes the diamond.’ So I don’t know.”
So, perhaps the Boulets enjoy it when Mistress Time chokes them – with consent? “Wearing a diamond ring made out of coal,” says Dracmorda.
Speaking of pressure, which guest stars on Halfway to Halloween would survive one of the Boulets’ trademark “extermination challenges?” Dragula has seen contestants buried alive, covered in cockroaches, vacuum sealed in rubber, tattooed, forced to eat animal brains, thrown out of planes, and share some of their darkest secrets for all the world to see. It’s a lot to be crowned drag’s next “supermonster,” but when it comes to the cast of Halfway to Halloween, one person might have the intestinal fortitude to survive.
“David Dastmalchian would be the one,” says Dracmorda, “because he’s crazy. We’ve gotten to know him a lot through this experience. We’re friends, but now we’ve worked together. He was a co-producer on this with us, and he’s wild. I think he wants it. He wants us to do ‘exterminations’ on him.”
“Oh, he’s my pick, too,” adds Swanthula. “He is just wild. He is so down. We have a term that we use, and we got it from Rocky Horror Picture Show, the type of weirdos and queerdos of the world – people who are attracted to the darkness and really relate to the idea of being ‘other.’ From Rocky Horror, Drac and I are, and the people we see on the same level of life, we refer to them as ‘Transylvanians.’ And David Dastmalchian is absolutely a Transylvanian. And I think he would somehow enjoy the extermination experience.”
Experience the Boulet Brothers firsthand by watching The Boulet Brothers’ Halfway to Halloween TV special when it debuts on Shudder and AMC+ at 12am EST on Apr. 25.