Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies | Tagged: danny trejo, Efren Ramirez, exclusive, interview, John Gulager, Maria Canals-Barrera, quiver distribution, Seven Cemeteries

Seven Cemeteries Director on Horror Comedy, Trejo, Luchadores, & More

Director & writer John Gulager (Feast franchise) spoke to Bleeding Cool about his latest action horror comedy in Quiver's Seven Cemeteries.

John Gulager has accomplished a lot in his near-20-year career as an actor, cinematographer, and director. With his memorable work in the Feast franchise, Piranha 3DD (2012), and He Was a Quiet Man (2007), he's kept up his trend of blending his favorite genres from horror, action, thrillers, and comedy in his latest in Quiver Distribution's Seven Cemeteries, which follows recent parolee (Danny Trejo) who gets a Mexican witch (Maria Canals-Barrera) to resurrect his old posse so that they can help him save a woman's ranch from a ruthless drug lord. Gulager spoke to Bleeding Cool about the inspiration behind the film, why he wanted his main character Bravo to share certain aspects of Trejo's life, and how cicadas created problems during production.

Seven Cemeteries Director John Gulager on Combining His Love for Akira Kurosawa, Danny Trejo, Horror, Comedy, and Lucha Libre into the Film

Bleeding Cool: What's the inspiration behind 'Seven Cemeteries?'

The main reason is to make a movie with Danny and, after that, a movie based on [Akira Kurosawa's] 'Seven Samurai' (1954), 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960), and even 'The Getaway' (1972), because it's like "the guy gets out of prison movie," which I love that trope. It mashed them all together with Mexican culture, and my wife is from East L.A., so I'm involved with all that. My friend who's a luchador from Lucha VaVOOM, which is a mixture of lucha, beautiful girls, boys, and stuff like that. Mix all that together and make a movie about the living impaired.

How did the cast come together, and why is Danny perfect for the film?
Danny was an ex-con and had quite a history. I read his book ('Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood'), and he was on death row, not for murder or anything, but for being involved in a prison raid. He's come a long way to get here, but it was during the end of Covid, so everything was on tape. We would get all these tapes from people, nothing in person. Slowly but surely, we got a good cast. With Efren [Ramirez], Sal Lopez as the bad guy, Vincent [M. Ward], Lew [Temple], Maria, everybody, and I got my luchadors in there, so that's cool.

How is your time as a cinematographer and actor helped you as a director?

People go, "John, I like your style with all your weird angles." I don't know what they're talking about because I don't see anything I do as "weird." My parents pushed me not to make my stuff generic, to go ahead and shoot through the glass, or to have half the screen black because there's something in the way. I would shoot little Super8 growing up before video and slowly 16 mm [film]. There's a lens we used in this movie from 'The Getaway' with Steve McQueen and mine. It's not generic. Even if it's the normal shot, thing, or circumstance, these are dead people.

What was the most difficult scene or aspect of production?

The sound was difficult because these little bugs called cicadas were getting in the way. Every 20, 40, or 90 years or something. It was so loud, and we were shooting Oklahoma out on a farm, and the wind was blowing crazy. Nature was probably our biggest adversary as we filmed these car scenes. It was a thunderstorm-tornado situation. We shot some of it in a barn and pretended we were driving. Nature was our biggest challenge, and it was at the height of COVID-19, so we were trying to keep Danny from getting COVID-19. There are people on the crew who had it three times. I haven't had it yet.

Is there any other genre work you want to do next?

I work mostly in tweener films, which are somewhere between a scary movie and a comedy. I do an all-out scary movie and a regular, good crime film or thriller. I like all that stuff, love stories, not so much unless it's involved. There's a love story in this movie, 'Seven Cemeteries.' It's a little creepy, but they stick together, the luchadores.

Seven Cemeteries, which also stars Samantha Ashley and Richard Esteras, is in theaters, digital, and on-demand.

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