Seven Cemeteries Director John Gulager on Mixing Horror and Comedy

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Seven Cemeteries director John Gulager about the horror comedy movie. The filmmaker discussed the setup, working with stars Danny Trejo and Efren Ramirez, and more. Quiver Distribution will release the film in theaters, on digital, and on demand on October 11, 2024.

“A recent parolee (Danny Trejo) gets a Mexican witch to resurrect his old posse so that they can help him save a woman’s ranch from a ruthless drug lord,” says the synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Seven Cemeteries was a lot of fun to watch. That seemed to be like the entire ethos of this movie was just to be a really fun watch and entertaining. Would you agree with that statement, or what were you going for? Because it was funny throughout.

John Gulager: Yeah, it’s not really a scary movie per se. But yeah, I thought it was funny, but I also thought it was kind of sentimental, like buddies, and heartfelt. Maybe not buddies at first, but it comes across, I think, a little bit of that. Then at the end, sort of a little seriousness, maybe like in the comedy.

Danny Trejo, talk about the perfect lead for this film. First off, he still looks incredible for his age, and he is fantastic in this movie. What really stood out about working with him? He is a living legend.

I think there’s a misconception about Danny. Because his whole career, he is actually a good actor, you know? We shot a little thing. It’s not really in there, but it’s at a cemetery the first day, and I just turned around [and said], “Everybody, I think we’re good for this whole movie. This is great.” He was an archcriminal when he was young. He’ll always be saying something to me, and I’ll go, “Danny, I know. I read your book.” Because it’s all in there, and you should read the book, it’s actually a good read. I have his cookbook, also.

He’s full of surprises. I didn’t know he had a cookbook. I’ll have to look that up.

I think he even has a sequel to it.

I really liked the style of the film, especially with the introductions for each of the characters that were being dug up and coming back to life. How was it kind of determining that, that look for the film?

Well, it’s a little bit of a callback to a film I made a long time ago called Feast. So there’s a little bit of that in there, and people do that a lot. I just think we had to make it kind of funny. I think we had to just do a little shortcut for the whole introduction aspect of it. I don’t know if it’s spoiling, but we say a little bit of something about their past, why they’re involved in this venture, and why they thought they might be a good idea. So, yeah, so it, it was just that and then make it a little snappy with the music and everything like that.

The pacing’s really strong in this film. I love the introduction of the luchadors. They were such a fun aspect of the film. Could you speak to incorporating that?

I always wanna have luchadors in the movies. In fact, the very first version of the film, everybody was a luchador. Every person they dug up was a luchador, and it was all in Spanish. Eventually, that didn’t totally fly, but I got my luchador in there. I got a love story. I got a song. So I feel a little vindicated.

Obviously, the core idea is kind of like a riff on Seven Samurai. Why do you think that sort of team-up has just stood the test of time and worked so well? There are countless films like this.

Whether it’s a group of people or one person where you’re standing against an army or you’re standing to help the downtrodden against the bad guys. That always plays now. Obviously, I love Seven Samurai. I liked The Magnificent Seven, the one with Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner, which is really weird when you always think of Yul Brynner going around as the bald immigrant, leading the band of desperados. But, yeah, it is just a classic story, the good against evil, the weak against the strong. That you’re helping the weak people.

You have a really strong cast here. The ensemble seemed to just have a lot of fun playing off each other. How was that atmosphere on set?

Oh, it was pretty good. Of course, everybody has their little characters that they’re doing. We actually shot this on the tail end of COVID, so that was stressful. We’re all trying to keep Danny from getting COVID. There were people on the crew that have had it three times. We shot this in Oklahoma, and if you wore your mask somewhere, someone would go, “You’re the reason this country’s going to hell.” So it was a pretty wild time. The wind blowing like crazy, which I guess helps us with the COVID.

But yeah, I would go out with different people. We tried to keep Danny in, you know, but he loves to go out and be with people. I think from where he came from and where he is now, he so appreciates just being with people, as opposed to turning your nose up to the fans and all that kind of stuff. Going out with Efren, even though we had masks, there’d be people following us around Walmart. Because they would know. We’d pass somebody like three times, and then they’d finally go, “Pedro! Then he’d be so nice to them and stuff. They’d all take pictures. So it was a lot of fun.

How was it working with Efren Ramirez? Obviously, everybody loves Napoleon Dynamite, but he seems like somebody who’s not as busy as he should be.

Yeah. I don’t know. I think he should work all the time. He’s great. I don’t know if it totally comes across, to me it does, but from what could be a pretty standard portrayal of an undead person, he brought so much to it. He was constantly going, “Hey, John. What about this?” Like the drawing in the book and stuff. That was him. He does that. He has a book and he just writes down things constantly throughout the whole movie.

He’s a guy that just goes deeper and deeper. I don’t want to get into a spoiler thing, but there was a girl behind the scenes who does a thing called conforming, where she puts all the images and the sound together for us to edit and everything. She saw something that happened to one of the characters, and she goes, “Oh, he deserves so much better,” and you know who I’m talking about if you saw the movie.

You had the Feast trilogy that you started your directorial career with. What are you most proud of about that trilogy of horror movies?

That Alice Cooper loves it.

Oh, wow.

I saw an interview, and it’s tied with Evil Dead, which is not too slouchy. He goes, “There’s this crazy trilogy, the Feast trilogy. Have you ever seen it? It’s just insane.” So he picked that. He likes Salem’s Lot the most, but then the Feast and Evil Dead tied for second. I was like, “Oh my God. That’s pretty cool.”

Thanks to John Gulager for taking the time to talk about Seven Cemeteries.