Dragula’s Boulet Brothers tease game-changing Titans: ‘Expect things to be different’
The Boulet Brothers on the set of Dragula: Titans. (Shore Fire Media)
The Boulet Brothers on their new series, The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans, reinvention and “wild” drag.
The Dragula universe is expanding once again, as hosts The Boulet Brothers bring back previous competitors for another bite of the apple.
“The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans is basically a love letter to the fandom of Dragula,” Dracmorda Boulet, one-half of the duo, tells PinkNews.
“If you love the competitors, if you love the challenges, if you love the exterminations, the judges, and all that, this is a giant celebration of all that.”
The drag competition series premieres on 25 October and will feature several celebrity guests as well as a new “underworld” lair.
Guests include What We Do In The Shadows’ Harvey Guillen, Elvira star Cassandra Peterson, Dear White People’s Justin Simien, as well as Drag Race icons Alaska Thunderf**k and Katya.
Titans is the culmination of a long journey for the Boulet Brothers. They started Dragula in 2016, as a YouTube series. As the show gained a cult following, it was picked up by Amazon, which premiered seasons two and three, before finding its current home, on AMC’s horror streamer Shudder.
Comparisons to Drag Race are common, given that they’re the two biggest drag series on TV. But Dragula has forged its own path – one that celebrates alternative drag, that embraces horror, and that is guided by the Boulet Brothers’ genuine passion.
“We have our own internal measure for quality and excitement and always outdoing ourselves, so we’re ruled by that instinct more than pleasing other people,” says Swanthula Boulet.
The Boulet Brothers. (Shore Fire Media)
“We’ve always gone by what our inner voice says, and that has worked very well for us and that’s what we continue to do through Dragula: Titans.
“It just comes from a very real place. Dragula is an extension of our drag, it’s an expression of our experiences, and the things that we love and hate about existing as a queer person in the world.”
While they’re proud of what they’ve achieved, they’re not ones to rest of their laurels.
“I am proud of where it’s at, but there’s always room to expand and to improve,” Dracmorda says.
“To me, it’s a living, breathing work of art. We hatched the egg on season one and it’s continued to grow, so we have to constantly nurture it and teach it new things.”
Dragula: Titans’ elimination challenges will reach a new level
One of the most thrilling parts of Dragula is its elimination challenges, which have included being buried alive in a coffin, being pierced with needles, skydiving, and being tattooed.
Dragula: Titans will have some of the most thrilling challenges yet, with expert consideration being put into their ideas and concepts.
“We wanted to reinvent things a little bit because this is a spin-off,” Dracmorda says. “Just like with Dragula: Resurrection, the format is very different. I would say fans should expect things to be different with exterminations and all that.”
The Boulet Brothers. (Shudder)
Dracmorda says that they have “an endless list of things we’d love to see drag artists do on camera”, and that “a lot of it comes from our drag history”.
“We didn’t come up in a traditional drag arena, we weren’t lip-syncing at a local bar, we were doing punk-rock fetish parties or we were in the desert at a Mad Max festival. Our drag was born out of a much more dangerous place than you would normally find.”
Self-expression is incredibly important for the Boulet Brothers
For the Boulet Brothers, the last thing that drag should consist of is boxes. Dragula is and has always been a way to show the world the alternative themes of drag and to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Even the concept of horror drag is, in itself, a box that the pair aim to move beyond and transcend.
“What Dragula really is is a celebration of non-traditional drag, or what has become traditional drag,” Dracmorda says. “If you look at drag’s origins, it’s not as homogenised as it is today.
“Drag was wild! I mean, if you look at people like Dina Martina, they were crazy. None of them looked the same, some of them were comedy, some of them were filthy.
“I would hope that someone wouldn’t watch [Dragula] and say, ‘Oh, horror drag! This is a new genre I want to do,'” they add.
“What I would suggest to people is that they get inspired by the monsters we show and go after what they love – not with an idea that they fall in love with on TV.”
The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans streams on Shudder.
