The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula’s move to Shudder arrived with its largest prize to date and some welcome production upgrades – c’mawn Shudder! Aside from a sleeker boudoir, stronger editing, and some other bells and whistles, one aspect that’s been noticeably elevated is the cold open at the start of each episode. I’ve always loved these artistic segments that tie into the week’s theme with flair and reverence for the horror genre, and now the higher-budget shorts are more stylish and spookier than ever.

These openings and their respective closers – in which the exterminated queen stars in a flashy murder scene – truly blend a reality competition series with the horror films that the Boulets and their Monsters treasure so dearly. Like everything else on The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, the concept is unique and adds to the excitement of tuning in each week. So, in honor of these devilishly entertaining shorts, the following are my Top 3 Cold Opens of Season 4, with a few runners up for good measure.

Episode 1 – The Witch Queens of Samhain: The best opening of the entire series, in my opinion, Season 4’s premiere brings us way back to one of the earliest competitions, The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Origins Serving us Galadriel from Lord of the Rings doing ASMR, an ethereal voice narrates the ceremony as a group of unholy peasants participates. We witness a barbaric extermination of yore, and a former Drag Supermonster is crowned, drenched in their competitors’ blood. Suddenly, we’re in the present-day, watching horror fans with newly acquired Boulet Brothers masks ogle their prize. One by one, the masks possess their hosts and transform them into killers on behalf of their Boulet overlords – you really should leave collector’s items in their original packaging, dearies. Later, during the Extermination, we see these masked minions hunt the bottom two through the woods in a music video homage to 80s slashers.

These sequences bookend the episode to let you know Season 4 is here in a big way. This isn’t simply a cute promo teaser or a bad skit…we’re given an actual, fantastical backstory to the series and an introduction to the season in the form of a legitimate short film. The imagery in the flashback is genuinely unsettling, and the present-day bit is the stuff of a classic slasher, gradually building tension as it goes. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were starting up Witch Queens IV: Curse of the Drag Queenon Shudder.

Episode 4: Hair Metal Strip Club: This opener welcomes the Boulets favorite episode of every season, the Monsters of Rock challenge. It fittingly and perfectly manifests their bad bitch attitude. After reintroducing us to Season 2 winner Biqtch Puddin’s iconically filthy janitor, we watch as the Boulets enter their club in transcendent hair metal couture and take a seat at the poles. Surrounded by male erotic dancers and (presumably) mounds of cocaine, the duo sits back for a show. Unfortunately, the male in their gaze spills a solo cup full of tequila all over Madame Swanthula, and, with the snap of her fingers, the cold-hearted bitch has him choked out between some meaty thighs. Unbothered, the party continues.

Once American Idol introduced the world to Simon Cowell, every reality television competition felt it needed that one “asshole judge” persona to keep things spicy. The Boulets are not mean, but they don’t take anyone’s crap and effortlessly embody two fabulous c-words who, now and again, show a softer side to their Monsters. These two are who they say they are, not a pair of jesters delivering zingers for our entertainment (although they do have some good ones), and the hair metal opener is entirely their brand of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. The all-white contacts and the fact that we’ve never seen them out of drag certainly help to perpetuate their intimidating mystery.

 Episode 8: Murder Marionettes: Pupaphobians beware! This week’s theme may be Killer Clowns, but the real stars of the show are the marionettes made in the Boulet’s likeness. These cackling puppets welcome us to the Circus of Clowns and its journey into madness like the good satanic ringleaders they are. Soon, their clowns are on the attack, and innocent dolls looking for a show are spewing blood at high velocity.

Of course, the creativity displayed throughout a season of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula knows no bounds, but I was absolutely delighted by the appearance of these Barbies of the Bordello. Their pouty facial expressions and chaotic movements were a joy to behold, and I always welcome a dose of comedy with my horror. By the episode’s end, we’re even treated to marionettes of the Final Four awaiting judgment before the finale. I guess your very own personalized Annabelle is a nice consolation prize for falling short of $100,000.

Runners-Up: These two certainly stood out to me, but ultimately couldn’t murder the hair metal marionettes of Samhain.

Episode 2: Nosferatu Beach Party: In what is surely the zaniest cold open of the season, the Boulets let their guard down to reveal a campier side not often seen on the show. Shot in the style of a 1950s beach party flick, we’re treated to Drac and Swan letting loose with their men and moonscreen until an unwelcome outsider encroaches on their fun. All tea all shade to the exterminated queen of the week.

Episode 7: Exorsisters: This blasphemous opener finds the Boulets in a tiny electric chapel, on the prowl for human sacrifice. Swan spits acid onto a crucifix via a nasty little practical effect, and it’s there they see a hunky priest at the pulpit. He’s forced to disrobe and is left cowering in fear and humiliation as they prepare for ritual sacrifice. It’s no “Judas” or “Montero” video in sheer production scale, but even so is fervently offensive to those of the cloth.

Horror openings often hook you in with a macabre precursor of what’s to come, and these gutsy Season 4 cold opens allow the show’s unique viewpoint to pop from reel one. With another season in the grave, I look forward to experiencing the Boulets one-up themselves for many more to come.

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula is available to stream on Shudder.

I’ve come to find that writing horror articles is like making a horror movie: you’ve got to have a sequel eventually. And I loved picking out the references in The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Season 2 so much, that I decided it was only fair to try again for the fans, and extract the moments, looks, and kills that honor horror history the most.

Fourth Times the Charm

With a series as long-running and legendary as Halloween, you knew the Boulets would have to put some respect on Michael Myer’s name eventually, and where better to do so than in the season opener? Down to the head-bashing, blood smearing kills of the paramedic, the Boulets play out the ambulance murders of a reawakened Michael Myers perfectly, re-enacting the rampage from 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers stylishly to kick off another season.

Remembering Frank Cotton’s Better Half

The demise of  Violencia! in episode 1’s extermination short film could reference several different hammer killers of horror legend. Still, aesthetically it most resembles Hellraiser’s very own Julia Cotton. Fans of Frank’s demented accomplice will recognize her weapon of choice, the claw hammer, which she used to finish off the sacrifices she seduced and brought to the Cotton home to rebuild Franks body. In a way, it’s fitting; much like Frank’s resurrection, you can’t build the world’s next Drag supermonster without shedding some blood and cracking a few heads.

Evil Ernie, Eat Your Heart Out!

As someone who has frequented many spinner racks in my lifetime, I’ve gotten fairly in tune with many comics. One niche comic book reference in Week 1’s supervillain-themed competition is to the obscure horror comic character Lady Death. Dollya Black’s costume is a close pastiche of the Evil Ernie comic book character, clad in skimpy black leather and sporting white hair and deathly pale skin. Had I not known any better, I would have assumed it was an outright cosplay of the demonic death deity herself.

Bathory, Boulet, Same Thing Right?

The opening of episode 2 sees Dracmorda bathing in the blood of another sacrificed manservant, which is another classic vampire movie trope that’s hard to forget. In the tradition of Elizabeth Bathory, many famous vampire queens throughout horror have rejuvenated themselves by bathing in blood, and these queens are no different.

The Count Has Arrived

There are quite a few Dracula references in episode 2, as it is a vampire-themed challenge, so here are the two most important. Gary Oldman’s iteration of the character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) gets a heavy reference drop in Evah Destruction’s look, with an instantly recognizable wig and lacy, gothic red clothing. The movie also factors into the extermination short film. Much like in the iconic opening to Francis Ford Coppola’s horror spectacle, a statue cries tears of blood in the wake of a Dracula’s wife dying. It’s just a shame it had to be a queen as great as St. Lucia to pass via staking.

Brothers Dearest

Episode 5’s opening isn’t an outright reference to a horror film, but it does reference a truly horrifying biopic. The Boulets berating of Israel and another manservant over cleaning the floors is a deliberate homage to a scene in the Faye Dunaway classic Mommie Dearest, complete with a lot of screaming and shaking of powdered floor cleaner.

Hollow Eve’s Got This in The Bag

The same trash-themed episode was capped off by eliminating the iconic and verbose (sometimes to her detriment) Hollow Eve. She went out in a short film tribute to the unforgettable plastic bag kill Clare suffers at the hands of Billy in the 1974 classic, Black Christmas.

Keep Calm and Slither On

The hardest to spot of the easter eggs for me, Dollya Black’s look was on the tip of my tongue, but it took a few rewatches to realize it was a play on the 2006 James Gunn cult film Slither. In Episode 6, Dollya takes on the role of patient zero for a leech mutation, hungry for flesh and blood in this hospital-themed challenge. Not only does this fit the bill for what happens to Michael Rooker’s Grant in the film after being exposed to the alien entity the Long One, but her right arm is also mutated into an elongated, leech-like appendage exactly how his does!

Maddelynn’s Nut Allergy Blues

All my Ari Aster fans out there must recognize the homage to Hereditary in the sixth extermination short film. With Milli Shapiro as a guest judge and plenty of tongue-click in-jokes from the Boulets, how could you not? Like Charlie, Maddelynn Hatter had the distinct misfortune of being decapitated while leaning out of a car window. But hey, at least it wasn’t a telephone pole with a demonic sigil for summoning Paimon on it, right?

Priscilla the Pinhead

Episode 7’s challenge gave us many circus-worthy aberrations. Still, Priscilla’s look was the most glaring. It was a reference to Pepper, a recurring character on both the Asylum and later Freak Show seasons of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. Ms. Chamber’s makeup, childlike dress, and mannerisms were a spot-on imitation of Naomi Grossman’s character on the show.

A Test of Strength

Evah Destruction, however, did not fare as well as the other freaks, and short of the head split in episode 4, got the grisliest of the extermination short films. In another deep-cut reference, The Boulet Brothers took inspiration from The Other in 2018’s Hell Fest, mimicking how the masked killer dispatches a festival-goer with a strength test mallet, in the same way, crushing their head with a pulpy and macabre result. Play deadly games, win deadly prizes.

And so, we close the book of references on another season. How many of these were you able to spot on your first watch-through? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for more The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula articles like this one to come, only here on Horror Press!

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula is available to stream on Shudder.