There’s a few genres that you can mix together that work perfectly, horror and comedy being a couple of them. “Feast” director John Gulager has a keen knowledge on seamlessly integrating these two genres together and creating bloody good entertainment. All of the guts, nudity and humor are seeping out of “Piranha 3DD” which makes us happy.
In “Piranha 3DD” we fast forward some time after the tragic, gruesome events that happened at Lake Victoria. We follow Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) as she tries to prevent the awful incident to repeat itself in the water park in her home town.
Thankfully we got the awesome chance to speak with the director of the horror comedy. He goes off about Go ahead and take a gander at what simply is one of the more entertaining interviews I’ve experienced. And don’t forget that “Piranha 3DD” is out on DVD and Blu-ray today.
Hello sir!
John Gulager: You just need to add an extra “e” to that word right there.
Okay then, hello sire! It sounds very noble or what have you.
John Gulager: Mmm yes. How are you doing?
I’m doing good. How are you doing sire?
John Gulager: Oh oh oh! You’re the first! You’re the first to use correct word. I love it, thank you.
First off congratulations.
John Gulager: Thank you, thank you. It’s all because of you.
Sure. [laughs] So let’s get to it. Since horror is your forté what is it about this terrorizing genre that thrills you so much?
John Gulager: I like all genres but I guess the horror thing has been with me since I was a kid. I think it’s kind of the first thing you get to when you’re a kid is horror movies and monster movies and stuff like that. We would show them in the back yard. My dad would bring home 16mm films and we’d show “Abbot and Costello meets The Mummy,” things like that. So I guess it kind of just stuck. When I was a teenager to sort of more worldly horror films and fantasy things like “Beauty and the Beast,” and got into “A Matter of Life and Death.” But the monster movies… “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” was kind of my favorite when I was a kid. The monsters were always kind of the lonely sad guys in a way, being pestered by these kind of straight up teen pricks. I kind of identified with that, you know what I mean? [laughs] They don’t always play them that way but sometimes they did like with “Frankenstein” and stuff. Some lonely dude that life didn’t go right for.
You’re right. The monsters seems to be very misunderstood. And I must say that “Piranha 3DD,” wow… between the blood and the boobs.
John Gulager: Boobs! I don’t know how old you are but I’m pretty old but we’re still saying boobs. It’s like when I was like a kid what else are you going to say?
You can say bosom or something.
John Gulager: When I was a kid it was actually a bad word when you say “boobs” and they told you not to say it. And here I am, my life’s work now back with the boobs.
Funny how those things work out.
John Gulager: Hey hey, it could be worse! Because you know what? I don’t want to sound all creepy but boobs are fine with me.
Well I mean boobs work really well in 3D, that’s for sure.
John Gulager: Yes, 3DD!
Yes! Exactly! [laughs] And so does… between the boobs, the breasts, the bosoms and the blood, that go perfectly hand in hand, I’m curious how you first came over to do “Piranha 3DD.” What was it about it that you loved about it, drew you to it?
John Gulager: The recent one I saw and I had a lot of fun with it. I was really surprised and even brought my wife to go see it. You know, she should come see this with me. This was way before “Piranha 3DD” was even thought of. So that was already had happened. Then just one day out of the blue I just got a phone call, I mean just really out of the blue, and it was Weinstein said do you want to do it? Piranha? In 3DD? I thought that was pretty funny because I never set out to do sequels and stuff like that, but I thought it would be pretty fun. They were kind of looking for a wacky kind of thing and they were like make a fun movie, we want it to be fun!
I like how you make one of the Weinsteins sound a little bit like Igor.
John Gulager: I wish they did say that. So what about YOU? What attracted YOU to horror? Are you a horror person or a writer person?
I’m a little from column A, a little from column B. Well like the thing is you were talking about kids fascinated with horror and stuff like that, it always seemed kind of forbidden or taboo. Ooooh, let’s go have a sleepover and let’s not tell mom that we’re going to go and rent some random horror movie. I remember one time my friends had a sleepover and they made us watch “Dentist.” That was a very interesting sleepover movie.
John Gulager: And I think the other thing about horror films is like there’s less love story. Usually when they stick the love scene in it’s the most boring, slowest part of the film. That’s why we kind of spiced ours up a bit with the little sex scene. But otherwise it’s like oh no, not this scene even in “Aliens” when he’s showing her how to use the gun it’s like oh yeah, sexual tension.
I was going to mention the sex scene in “Piranha 3DD.” I love it! Especially the girl’s delivery when she comes up to the female lead’s place.
John Gulager: [laughs] Oh yeah, that line. We were all saying the line for a long time. It’s like the whole thing is what’s the best reading of this line? How can we say this line? So that’s always kind of fun because even though you’re making this kind of movie, and it’s got that kind of line, you still are approaching it like your work and you’re an actress. So Katrina (Bowden) she’s going to do that line and it’s all about how should we go about this? What reading should I give it? I think it turned out really well. But there’s always this thing. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. When you’re looking at it through glasses or something that there’s that kind of line but you’re still approaching it like you have to. That’s your job. But it’s still kind of funny in retrospect. It’s our job, what we do for a living you know. It’s pretty cool.
I was going to say too the sex scene did kind of remind me of “Alien.”
John Gulager: [laughs] Well we couldn’t cut that out but we enjoyed it afterwards. That’s one of my favorite scenes ever.
And I have to say bless you for having David Hasslehoff sing.
John Gulager: I wrote that song, most of those songs.
You did!?
John Gulager: Yeah. That was one of the early scenes that I put in the script and it kept getting cut out because no one saw the point in that. I was like no no no, this is great! It’s like… he’s down and out, he’s in this hotel, he’s sort of working on like his song for his next album. They were like no no that’s too silly and blah blah blah. I like that kind of stuff. Sort of humanizes the Hoff.
Yeah, and between Hasslehoff’s… there’s so much I enjoy about this movie including…
John Gulager: Your check is in the mail!
[laughs] Okay. All right then… stereotypical question about what you’re doing next!
John Gulager: Oh no!
Oh no!
John Gulager: I’ve got a couple of movies but they’re very difficult to get done because one of my goals is to do something that’s not a comedy just to shake things up a bit. So Charles Manson’s book that he wrote, he’s one of the Manson guys and I might do a movie on that. or else there’s a western that I’ve been trying to get off the ground for quite a few years. But every time someone reads it they never call me back. I mean literally. I don’t think they’re that bad. They do have elements of horror in them of course because I’m like that. Even if it’s not a horror movie I’m going to put in a dream sequence or something so I can at least have some monsters kind of goal whatever. But yeah, so we’ll see. All I can say is who knows? I didn’t even know that “Piranha 3DD” was going to happen so there you go. [laughs]
