Interview With John Gulager, Director Of ‘Seven Cemeteries’

When they asked me if I wanted to chat with filmmaker John Gulager, the son of Return of the Living Dead‘s Clu Gulager, I immediately said yes because I’m such a huge fan of his previous directorial work with Feast and Piranha 3DD. His latest film, Seven Cemeteries, is more of a western horror/thriller and stars Danny Trejo, Efren Ramirez, and Lew Temple. And it stars with a bang, literally. With such a great cast, I knew this film was going to be a ton of fun and I was absolutely right.

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.

To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with John about how the project came about, the cast, horror movies, and more!

PopHorror: I’m a big fan so I’m super excited to talk to you today.

John Gulager: Great! Send money.

PopHorror: What inspired the film and how did the project come about?

John Gulager: So basically, it all came about to just make a movie with Danny, was probably the first thing. The whole Seven Samurai. I love Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven. I love guy gets out of jail movies so we kind of combine all those with Mexican culture a bit with the bruja and luchadores and different things like that. Just panic cobbled together a little thing. Now, I am not the main writer. Joel Soisson is so I want to make sure that that’s… Basically we were just talking, developed a little scenario, but we kind of stuck pretty close… Well, even though it’s very loosely based on Seven Samurai. There’re just certain things that are very similar. But just like the title, Seven Cemeteries, it’s not an S, it’s a C so that’s kind of indicative of the differences between the two movies. They sound like it.

PopHorror: You mentioned wanting to work with Danny, but I love seeing Efren Ramirez doing more horror and horror-adjacent movies because I think he’s so fantastic. You had a really great cast as well. What was your casting process like?

John Gulager: It was during Covid still, so it wasn’t in person. It was all through tapes and stuff like this. I had actually worked with Efren in the past. We were in a short film together and I think we were playing brothers if you can believe that because I just remember he was really disappointed with my Spanish accent. I kept doing like Spain accent Spanish and he was like, “No, no, that’s not it.” So I knew him from that from way back and when this came up, I was like oh we should contact Efren to see if he would want to do it. He did send a tape and it’s kind of interesting because he went out in the desert and had a guy shoot him and it was a really professional tape. That was interesting because it just goes to show you… And then other people we cast were just someone shot them against a stucco wall with an air conditioner going next to them. It just depends, and we cast her and we thought she was great. Then I would look people up too, like Lew I looked up and I liked his tape. When I looked him up, it said that he wanted to be a baseball player so I’m like, oh yeah, that’s good.

PopHorror: Well that worked out for you. It goes to show that they can adapt to any environment. You said the one was against a stucco wall with an air conditioner, that shows that she can do it anywhere. You’re no stranger to the horror genre, having directed the Feast series, Piranha 3DD, among others. Why do you feel people resonate with horror so much?

John Gulager: I don’t know. I loved it all growing up. I’m older than all you guys. I would go see it in the theater but also my parents gave me a little nine inch black and white TV and I would just watch, all night long, horror movies. Because they were cheap I guess, they could put them on TV and also on Saturdays. I just grew up with tons of these probably low budget horror films but as a kid you don’t know that at all. They’re just good or scary. Sometimes you look at them and they’re so bad but they were so scary to me. I don’t know, I guess that whole roller coaster situation. Why do people go on roller coasters? Why do people go on roller coasters that are run backwards? It’s just a thrill and I think maybe this aim is like a great love story where your heart is just… Same thing with a horror film. Your heart is just beating faster. People would say we’re having a resurgence of horror, although I’d say it never left. But you know, there’s quite a few movies I’m waiting for like Nosferatu, things like that I think would be pretty bitchin. It’s just more thrilling, I guess.

PopHorror: Yes, it is. One, I love that you used the word bitchin because I am determined to bring that back. And two, you said why do people ride roller coasters backwards, why do people watch horror, to me it’s the fear of the unknown. You don’t know what’s behind you when you’re riding it backwards. When you’re watching a horror movie, you don’t know what the next thing coming is. To me, one of my biggest fears is fear of the unknown. I feel like that’s a great comparison because I 100% agree.

John Gulager: The scariest thing – my wife pointed this out… By the way, we were riding the Cyclone backwards at Coney Island, and an earring came off and it just stood in front of us for a while before it went phst like that. Never found it. But her whole thing is that the scariest thing, and I believe this too, is when you’re in a situation that you have no control over, whether it’s a home invasion or the monster is at the door or something, you have no control over what happens to you. That’s very scary.

PopHorror: Yes! Just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

John Gulager: Oh, gosh. I was thinking about this because I knew someone would ask, but when I was a kid, the scariest movie… See, I like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla, and all this, but when I was a kid, they were the heroes. Frankenstein, King Kong, they were always the heroes. They weren’t the bad guys. There was a movie, that’s really so bad but Alien was based on it partly. The Terror from Beyond Space. Scared me so bad. It’s just ridiculous. A guy in a rubber outfit and they’re on a spaceship. I don’t know. It still scares me for some reason. It’s just such a silly movie.

Thank you so much to John for taking the time to speak with us. Seven Cemeteries is available on Demand and Digital now!