The Members of Dr. God Talk Bloodsucking Bastards at Texas Frightmare Weekend
Texas Frightmare Weekend prides itself on being a showcase for new independent horror films more than a showcase for studio projects. Every year it seems like there’s one standout feature that screens at the con, and this year it was Bloodsucking Bastards (review here). It’s a film that tells a simple tale: Corporate jobs will suck the life out of you, but what happens to a group of corporate wage slaves when a vampire takes over as their new boss? It’s equal parts hilarious and gruesome, and I had the honor of chatting with all five members of the comedy troupe responsible for it.
The troupe is Dr. God: Justin Ware, Brian O’Connell, Sean Cowhig, Neil Gargulio, and Dave Park. They wrote, produced, and directed the film as well as appearing on screen with Fran Kranz, Pedro Pascal, Joel Murray, and Emma Fitzpatrick. We hung out in the hotel bar for an hour or so, chatting about the movie, their origins, and brony rape revenge films.
Mr. Dark: Why did you choose to do a horror movie as your first feature?
Justin Ware: Some of it was that this project was brought to us, initially, and we fell in love with it. It was kind of already in development, so there was already a gem of an idea we liked, and we took it over and made it our own. We keyed in on it, and Brian, our director, is a real horror aficionado. For him it was a no-brainer. I also think there’s a lot of weird similarities between horror and comedy, the “surprise!” factor, the unexpected. I think the two genres, when you do it properly, mix really well.
Neil Gargulio: Coincidentally, when we were contacted for this, we’d just finished writing a script that was a horror comedy. It’s something that we’re passionate about and love so the stars aligned, and they brought us over to a genre that we were already developing.
Dave Park: Justin’s on to something there. There really is something to be said for scaring people and getting laughs. You’re getting a visceral reaction.
MD: It’s natural, like “Gasp!” then “Ha ha ha!”
DP: Right, then it puts you at ease. I mean, I’ve loved horror movies my entire life, and comedy movies my entire life, so it’s wonderful to be part of something that merges those two worlds. It’s hard to do it well, but I think we do a really good job of towing that line by being really honest and true with the horror that’s going on, and then the comedy comes from there.
MD: It’s not a comedy with some horror or a horror movie with some comedy; it’s a true horror comedy.
Sean Cowhig: It’s like that old saying: “The best laugh you have is after you bleed.”
MD: And in general, if you look at the Freddys, the Chuckys, even though they get dark, there’s almost a balance: scary moment, one-liner, scary moment, one-liner.
DP: Yeah, if you look at the Child’s Play movies, as they go along, it just gets more and more comedic. It’s as if people start to realize… wait a minute… this is a DOLL. And he’s killing people. That’s just funny; let’s go with that.
NG: By the time Leprechaun is smoking weed in the hood…
DP: “In Da Hood!”
NG: Right, in da hood.
JW: I also think, with horror and comedy, they’re the two best genres to see in a theater with a bunch of people. As viewing patterns shift, it’s still fun to go to a movie theater for the right kind of movie. That’s why this kind of thing (Texas Frightmare Weekend) is great for us. It’s just really fun to see the movie with people.
MD: Considering that you did choose to do a horror movie as your first feature-length film, you didn’t choose to do just any old horror movie. You chose to do a movie where the blood budget alone had to be a significant chunk of the cost.
DP: We were also surprised to the degree that Brian wanted to push that, to a degree, but in a very awesome way.
NG: He’s got a great vision so he was like, “Just trust me!”
JW: Our FX guys were always coming up to Brian, saying “Are you sure? Is it too much?” He always made it clear: This is that part of the movie now, we’re off to the races, so more! Keep it coming!
SC: It all starts with me exploding, and then we go from there.
NG: Spoilers, Sean!
SC: It’s in the trailer!
DP: Going back to your original question about comedy and horror, comedy’s about heightening something, blowing something out of proportion, and horror’s like that, too. It’s about that release. Bigger kills, crazier monsters, nuttier scenarios. Establishing something and then heightening and heightening until everyone’s covered in blood.
MD: We have Peter Jackson to thank for a lot of that, with the lawnmower in Dead Alive.
JW: We’re all practical fans, but also we didn’t have the budget to do a million digital FX shots. Some of the practical was just a matter of not having enough time to do it another way. We got really fortunate with our cast, that they were very game.
MD: Fran (Kranz) had done Cabin in the Woods by then…
NG: He was used to it!
DP: Emma (Fitzpatrick) had done The Collection, Pedro had his head caved in and exploded on “Game of Thrones.” Joey (Kern) was in Cabin Fever…
NG: I had two lines in Dead Air, the Corbin Bernsen film!
JW: I talked to Fran about Cabin in the Woods… we had a really short shoot. For Cabin, he was covered in blood for, like, two months. At least with us it was only five days.
DP: The weirdest thing for me with the FX is that, because I vamp out at one point, I had to shave my arms. For me, that’s… [Ed. Note: Dave is only slightly hairier than Robin Williams or a Yeti.] I was having to do it like every three hours. That was wild, and the prosthetics on my face were crazy, but the contacts were the worst. You have to really trust somebody for them to say, “I’m just going to put my thumbs on your eyeballs and wedge these into your sockets.”
MD: Nope. Just nope.
DP: We were super excited to do a lot of practical FX as guys who grew up in the 80’s. John Carpenter, The Thing, Dead Alive. I was watching Amazing Spider-Man the other day, and the Lizard in that looks like a video game! It doesn’t register in the same way that a guy in a suit would.
MD: Of course, in equal parts to the vampire horror in Bloodsucking Bastards is the corporate world. I’m guessing somebody or everybody here has worked in the corporate world.
JW: I’ve done the longest term of service there. That was what was so funny to us when we started on this because it’s kind of a no-brainer. We couldn’t figure out why nobody has married these two things because the drudgery of the corporate world is so universal. Most people have had either a job like that or a lot of jobs like that. The kind of “undead” feeling that people have in those environments already. We wanted that part to feel authentic. There’s a certain language of the office and all the nonsense.
MD: Almost every single line that the character Max had in the film, I was thinking, “Oh my God… I’VE HEARD THIS. In real life!”
DP: You do not have to have a vampire as a boss to feel like you have the life sucked out of you. I think everybody finds that to be the case, and I think that’s why the movie works so well. We’re just taking something that people identify with and giving it a weird supernatural twist.
JW: The place that we shot was an office where half was empty, and that’s where we shot; then the other half was this tax company. We shot in February so they were busy, really ramping up. For our dressing rooms we were using empty offices so we would cross through the room where people are selling these tax services. We’re covered in blood…
NG: …but what we were shooting downstairs was happening upstairs!
DP: We would walk into our holding area, which was unused offices, and these people would be making sales calls with their boss leaning over them going, “Get ’em to sign! Get ’em to do it!” We were walking out of a scene and into another scene, but it was real life.
NG: I walked through that room and literally heard, “I don’t know, Jim… you owe thirty grand; maybe it’s time to sell that boat!”
SC: I was walking through and heard this one woman say, “Would you have any idea where your husband might have hidden the money?”
NG: When you think about what the actual business is in the movie, it was nothing compared to what they were actually doing upstairs! If we’d put that in the script, people would have said it was too outlandish. People don’t really do that for a living.
DP: We’re just trying to sell stupid stuff, and they’re going after dead people’s hidden money.
MD: Of course, Dr. God is all about improv; how much of the movie would you say is improvised?
JW: We had a script, and we always shot the lines in the script the first two or three takes, but then Brian would give us a take or two to play. A lot of the best lines were improvised, but there was a lot of good stuff in the script, too. I’d say it’s about 60/40 written.
DP: That’s what’s great about having a cast with that background. It’s a strength of ours and the people that we cast. You know you can go there. It’s fun exploring and finding new life in lines, whether it’s on stage or in front of a camera. It was one of the things that having Brian as a director, who is also an improviser… it really set the stage and the tone for people to be playful. To know that we can do that with each other makes it way easier.
NG: I’ll only say this because he’s not here, and when he arrives I’ll do nothing but disparage him, but Brian is an actor and improviser’s best friend. He gives you a level of comfort out there that encourages you to have fun. I feel privileged not only that he’s one of my best friends and that we get to work together a lot, but also to get that kind of direction and openness to play around like that.
DP: Joel Murray came up in Second City and is a fantastic improviser in his own right. We knew that he had that background. Joey completely blew us away, because we knew he was a funny guy, but he proved to be great at improvising.
(At this point, a very tired looking Brian finally arrives from his flight.)
SC: Back to it, BRIAN O’CONNELL IS A LIAR AND A CHEAT…
MD: So you were talking about how he made you fellate him every day?
NG: Well, I wouldn’t say he MADE us…
DP: And here’s the weird thing about it: It was almost to completion, and then he made you stop!
BO: I have my process.
MD: I have to ask the question you’ve probably been asked a thousand times. Dr. God? What the hell? They told me I’d be meeting Justin Ware and Dr. God, and I immediately replied that I HAD to meet someone named Dr. God.
JW: We were brainstorming for a sketch project that Neil and I were involved with and someone just threw it out there in that meeting but one of the other guys didn’t like it. Neil just said, “We’re going to pocket this name.”
NG: Oh yeah, we’re going to keep this name. Just stash it away, we’ll use it eventually. A while later I was part of this group that was going to do a show, and we broke up right before the show. We all knew each other and liked each other so I made some phone calls to put us together as a replacement team for this one show, and that was that.
JW: The thing is, that was supposed to be a one-off. We just continued working together, and even though we all love the name, it was a spur of the moment decision for this one show we were going to do.
DP: I’m just glad we didn’t go with the other choice, which I think was Mr. Fart’s Super Cool Toot Crew.
NG: I didn’t write that name and I don’t want my name associated with it. I’m going to start losing writing jobs.
DP: Let the record show that Neil Gargulio came up with Mr. Fart’s Super Cool Toot Crew.
NG: Well, you sent me a novel called Bullet Train to Poop Town! I want to continue to work in the entertainment industry! You’re my friends! Stop taking money out of my bank account with these lies!
DP: You developed a property called Rape Pony.
BO: Look, he was a pony who had some really bad things happen and had to do a lot of therapy.
MD: Ah, but then he goes out for his revenge! It’s I Spit on My Grave but for Bronies!
DP: The magic happens at Frightmare, and it’s happening right now.
MD: We’re creating evil here.
SC: So, American Boner Academy…
BO: I was waiting for someone to bring that one up.
MD: So that’s the next project? Are you doing American Boner Academy?
JW: No, no, this next one’s a little bit more of an action horror comedy, not quite as bloody as Bloodsucking Bastards.
DP: It definitely has horror elements. It’ll be in the same wheelhouse. People who love this movie will love that.
JW: We’re hopefully shooting that this summer. We’re doing a television pilot as well.
NG: Then we have Season 3 of “Mockpocalypse” for AXS TV, Mark Cuban’s network.
MD: Time for my traditional final question, all the more appropriate with this year’s Scream theme at Texas Frightmare: What’s your favorite horror movie?
DP: Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. There’s no Michael Myers in that movie, and yet, it’s a Halloween movie. It involves a bunch of murderous robots who have microchips in their brains made of chips from Stonehenge and a crazy toymaker who is designing masks that make people have their heads filled with bugs and snakes. That’s it for me. It’s the most batshit crazy horror movie.
SC: I’ll go with an oldie but a goodie. Watched it with my uncle for the first time. Also involves vampires. Fright Night. The original.
NG: Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At a certain point in that movie, Hulk Hogan breaks the fourth wall and shouts, “Let me tell you something, gremlins!” When the gremlin turns around with the glasses and it’s the voice of Tony Randall, I’m in!
BO: I’m sort of a two-fer. My favorite horror movie of all time is also the first horror movie I saw, the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre when I was 7. On the flip side of that, I always try to put this in interviews because I believe it from the bottom of my heart: I believe American Psycho is the funniest movie to come out in the last 30 years, and it keeps getting funnier every fuckin’ time I see it. It’s pitch black satire.
JW: Since I’m last and closing it out, I’m not going to say Bloodsucking Bastards.
NG: Thank you very much for not saying that!
JW: For me, I think it would be the first time I saw horror could be funny, like Dead Alive or Evil Dead 2. I always lean towards the funnier side.
The screening the next night went extremely well, and the crew received thunderous applause after their Q&A. Dave got bonus points for wearing a Goblin shirt.
Thanks to the hilarious guys from Dr. God and Shout! Factory, who will be releasing Bloodsucking Bastards shortly. Stay tuned for more details soon!
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