AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Spooky season is here, and The Boulet Brothers are ready to haunt.
DRACMORDA BOULET: So the Boulet Brothers are Dracmorda...
SWANTHULA BOULET: And Swanthula.
D BOULET: We always have silver, white hair. Our eyes are whited out like a vampire. We're usually wearing only black and red, and it's shiny, like vinyl or latex. We have long claws. We're quite imperial looking, I would say.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DRAGULA THEME SONG")
THE BOULET BROTHERS: (Singing) Drag, filth, horror, glamour.
RASCOE: The Boulet Brothers aren't blood brothers but a duo of drag queens and romantic partners in real life. They also co-produce and co-host "The Boulet Brothers' Dragula." It's a horror-themed reality TV series in which people compete for the title of the world's next drag supermonster. As Swan says, The Boulet Brothers were inspired by the couple's early life.
S BOULET: My experience was coming into the scene sort of in the East Village of New York, and it was very gritty, very punk. It was political. It wasn't pretty all the time. And we wanted people to see more of that, so we decided to bring these weird, creative creatures out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
RASCOE: You know, I'm a big horror fan, and so watching the show, I hadn't really seen much of horror and drag together, I mean, you know, outside of, like, Alfred Hitchcock and...
S BOULET: Sure.
RASCOE: ...The shower scene and (laughter)...
S BOULET: But that's exactly it, right? I think queer people can very much relate to the monsters. They're outcasts. They're others. And we look back into the history of horror, going back to, it'd be in the '30s, James Whale, who's responsible for tons of, like, the Universal monster movies and some of the classic movies that we see. But when you look at horror, there's a huge list where the cross-dresser is sort of like the force of evil. Like, they're the killer. It's - from "Silence Of The Lambs," "Psycho," "Sleepaway Camp," "Dressed To Kill," "Terror Train," "Rocky Horror," it just - I mean, it - the list is, like, endless. So queerness and horror, I think, are, like, a perfect match.
RASCOE: You know, the show is made up of a bunch of challenges.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE BOULET BROTHERS' DRAGULA")
D BOULET: Well, it's your gothic wedding day, uglies.
(CHEERING)
S BOULET: That's right. For this week's gothic wedding challenge, you must conceptualize and create two distinct looks. The first - a gothic bride. And the second - you guessed it - a gothic groom.
RASCOE: These costumes - they're so elaborate. I mean, this isn't just, like, you know, "Project Runway." Like, this is, like, full transformations that you are seeing. How do you come up with these episode ideas? Like, they're very intense.
(LAUGHTER)
S BOULET: Oh, wow. That is the easy part, honestly. Like, Drac and I - I say this - like, we've been in a creative conversation for, like, 20 years, since the day we met. The alchemy really excites us about different ideas and mixing them together, like drag queens in the desert at a post-apocalyptic neon rave.
RASCOE: Watching the show, you have challenges, but you also have, like, these kind of spooky dance numbers.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Seeing all of it was, like, oh, this is - this feels so familiar and nice for some reason, you know?
D BOULET: I think it's the freedom of expression that people see and sense and resonate with because we just don't really put any restraints on our cast. We want them to embrace their art 100% and pour it out all over the stage.
RASCOE: Oftentimes, when people think of drag, they think of men. But on this show, you have women also competing.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE BOULET BROTHERS' DRAGULA")
S BOULET: This poised powerhouse is back for blood - the divine Sigourney Beaver.
SIGOURNEY BEAVER: My goals are to have fun, do drag and win.
D BOULET: Yeah. It's important for us when we set out to do the show that we show all aspects of queer life, not just gay men who do drag - right? - because a lot of people do drag. There are drag kings that go back in history. There are trans people that do drag. There are women that do drag.
And other TV shows will present it as it's a guy in a dress, and everyone's like, OK, that's what drag is. But it's not really. That's just what, you know, they thought was acceptable to TV audiences. So for us, we want to represent drag as what it actually is, which is across the spectrum and open to anybody.
RASCOE: You mentioned kind of coming of age in New York. What was it like coming up in that time when club kids were big in New York? And of course, club kids, that's kind of the subculture of nightlife personalities in that time.
S BOULET: It was a huge explosion of everything that I repressed from growing up, where there just was no one like me. I worked in a lot of the clubs. There were years that I went out six nights a week. Like, I was really inspired by the nightlife, the music, the fashion, the culture, the freaks, you know, the level of self-expression that I just didn't see where I grew up. And I found it so liberating, and it really just - it helped me just become fearless in the way that I express myself.
D BOULET: Both of us grew in small towns where it was very conservative, and you're, like, wow, where do I fit in with this? So, you know, for me, when I started seeing, like, John Waters' movies and things like that, I was, like, oh, wow, there's a whole another world there. And then moving to a big city, you immediately start, you know, exploring the underground and the clubs and the culture, and then you're like, OK, there's a place for me.
RASCOE: So how did you two meet and fall into a horrific love story?
D BOULET: We met through a mutual friend. We were introduced at a restaurant that had a French and fetish bondage theme, and it was a match made in hell right there.
S BOULET: When we first met each other, I felt, oh, this is going to be a fun weekend. This guy, you know, is very cute. But then, you know, after we spent time together, I was, like, wow, I feel like this is someone I grew up with. And we started talking about our love of horror and comic books and what inspired us. And yeah, it all just developed from there.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL HALLOWS' EVE")
THE BOULET BROTHERS: (Singing) Candlelight by the jack-o'-lantern as the cauldron...
RASCOE: Ultimately, I mean, this show - it's fun, and it's horrifying but really entertaining. Is there a message that you both want people to take away after watching?
D BOULET: I think there's a message that inspired us from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," which is don't dream it, be it. And I think that is the message that we're trying to continue to project with the show. There is hope if you feel like you don't belong where you grew up and lived, like we did. There is another world out there.
S BOULET: Not only is there another world out there, but if there isn't the world that you want, you really can go make it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL HALLOWS' EVE")
THE BOULET BROTHERS: ...(Singing) Like All Hallows' Eve.
RASCOE: That's The Boulet Brothers. You can watch Season 2 of their show "The Boulet Brothers' Dragula: Titans" on Shudder or AMC+. Thank you so much for joining us.
S BOULET: Thank you.
D BOULET: Thanks for having us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL HALLOWS' EVE")
THE BOULET BROTHERS: (Singing) Hocus pocus and black cats screeching. 'Tis the season of the zombie. The spiderwebs... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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