‘The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula’: Dracmorda & Swanthula Talk ‘Titans,’ Halloween & More (VIDEO)

Step aside, Final Girls and make some room for the Queens of Darkness! As the hostesses and hilarious creators of Shudder’s The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, drag entities Dracmorda and Swanthula have been slaying it for six seasons now. Like a Drag Race for horror queers, the uber-inclusive and always entertaining competition mixes an insidious level of creativity with high-drama backstage battles, which have reached a fever pitch in this season’s Titans edition featuring former contestants with a lot to prove.

So, in honor of all things eerie, over-the-tope and glamaniacal, we thought it would be fab to grill the gals about the drag mistakes straights make, celebrity costumes, the clashes of the Titans, and their surprisingly traditional approach to spooky season. Plus, watch the video above for more!

OK, so how do the Boulet Brothers celebrate Halloween?

Dracmorda: We celebrate by bringing Halloween to thousands and thousands of people across the country. We’re traveling around, doing Halloween events all over the place. But we personally celebrate Halloween in a very traditional way. We usually have a house party — we have a historic house that we live in and we decorate it up and invite everybody over and do pumpkin carving and everyone wears homemade costumes. It’s very that vibe.

Shudder

It’s on a Friday this year, so that’s even better.

Swanthula: Yeah. Yes, we love it. And it is about tradition. It’s like apple cider and treats and roasted pumpkin seeds and all of that. But every year for the last several years, we do a big ball in Boston on Halloween night. So we’re literally on our way there now after a few days in New York. So we’ll be in Boston to kind of perform that ritual that we’ve done for the past six or seven years.

How long would you say it now takes you to get into the costumes du jour?

Swanthula: I’m going to say it gets quicker as we go along. We’re on the heels of doing a tour where we were in drag four to five days a week for six or seven weeks, and then right into the Halloween season. It’s gotten faster. So these days, I think we’re probably at our shortest ready-time, which is between an hour and a half and two hours.

Dracmorda: That is not the case for me. And it’s three hours period. She’s gotten faster. I have not, I don’t know why. [Laughs]

And the contacts, how opaque are they?

Swanthula: When you see us with our blind eyes on the show? That’s a pretty accurate adjective because the sight-reduction is pretty intense. I’d say it’s probably 50 to 60% you can’t see. So there’s very little depth perception. Anything that isn’t in direct light or in like shadows, you see nothing. I think it’s a little better without the stage lights. When the stage lights come on for some reason, you basically go blind.

Shudder

Now let’s talk about Titans because what a messy crew this year. It seems like this season we are dealing with next level dramatics.

Swanthula: Yeah, yeah, it’s true. Yeah, I don’t know what that was about. I guess we just cast the right group of people. I’ll pat ourselves on the back for the casting. I mean, I think this show is cast within an inch of its life and the drag is there, the personalities are there, and it’s combustible. We’re very happy with the way it’s going. [Laughs]

But it also probably means a lot longer hours because you’re sorting through some personal stuff here.

Dracmorda: Oh, yeah. It was very draining on set because you saw what happened even on Episode 4. It was chaos and there were multiple things and there’s more that happened that you’ll see on the next episode that carries over. So, yeah, it’s a lot to deal with. I think it’s a lot for the cast to deal with. It’s a lot for the crew to deal with. But at the end of the day, we’re making good TV that entertains people and that’s the name of the game.

Swanthula: At the same time, I think you’re right, there’s some insight into what you said because there is a lot of footage, but it also takes extra time to kind of deal with these delicate subject matters and people’s emotional states and their personal relationships outside of Dula world in their real life. So we do our best to try to take our time to make the best decisions to show the fans what happened and not exploit their lives.

Shudder

What reality show would you both like to appear on as contestants?

Swanthula: Oh, for me, it’s easy. It’s The Traitors. I love that show. We play a lot of those weird betraying social games in our real life with our friends, like Blood on the Watchtower and Werewolf and stuff like that. So I love those kinds of games.

Dracmorda: I’d love to be a friend of on a little three-episode arc on a Housewives, maybe The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

As the Queens of Halloween, what is the biggest mistake people make when they try to do drag at Halloween?

Dracmorda: I think it’s in their eyebrows. People’s eyebrows look crazy when they think of drag queens. They’re like, “You have to have a crazy look at eyebrow!” And I’m like, you really don’t. [Laughs]

Swanthula: Yeah, I’ll say they don’t practice in their heels before night of, because there’s nothing quite seeing a dude stomp around in heels badly. Oh, yeah. Don’t try any of those weird drag race moves because you’re going to hurt yourself. I saw somebody on stage try to do a forward flip and basically just bashed their head on the stage and I was like, you all need to stop.

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And what’s your Halloween candy go-to for trick or treaters?

Dracmorda: I want to give away candy apples. You know what I mean? Classic candy apples with caramel and peanuts on it, all that. I mean, their parents would probably throw them in the trash, but I’d still like to do it for me. [Laughs]

Swanthula: I don’t know. That could go one of two ways. When I was a kid and I got candy apple, I was like, this could be either amazing or shady. I would say stay clear of the candy apples. I’m going to say I love sour with my sweet. So Sour Skittles and Sour Patch Kids. The more sour the better!

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans, Tuesdays, Shudder and AMC+