The fan-favorite anthology horror series Slasher has found a home with Shudder for its fourth season. Series creator Aaron Martin and showrunner Ian Carpenter return with the cast to introduce a new set of characters and a chilling story. With this season bearing the subtitle Flesh & Blood, Season 4 focuses on an elderly patriarch inviting his dysfunctional family to a remote island home where their usual bickering turns murderous as they compete for the family fortune. Among the squabbling characters is Christy Martin, portrayed by series veteran Paula Brancati, who still feels isolated from the family a decade after marrying into it.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Brancati shared the appeal of working in horror and discussed joyfully leaning into the theatrical nature of the show and its genre.
By my count, Paula, you’re one of two people that has been in every season of Slasher, across every cast and story. What keeps you coming back for more?
Paula Brancati: I have been in every season! The first season, only for a little sprinkle, but I have been across all of them. The thing that keeps me coming back for more starts with Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter, our creator, and showrunner. They are so kind and so creative and constantly come up with really interesting characters. It’s very rare that you get to come back and can play in the same sort of sandbox, but to have four very different women to play with is really dreamy. I had never really done horror before this and Aaron really was the one to offer me that opportunity and I didn’t realize how inherently suited for it am because I’m Sicilian, with all the crying and dramatics. [laughs]
With the role of Christy this season, was there a specific line or bit of info in the character breakdown that informed how you approached the character?
It’s the first time I’m playing a mother and that was exciting to me. They pitched it to me also as a partnership with Seamus, played by my dear friend Christopher Jacot, so that was really attractive. And in also talking to Adam [MacDonald], he’s a close friend and we’ve known each other since the Being Erica days with Aaron Martin. He gave me a really great clue early on when we were talking about Jennifer Lawrence in Mother!, we really talked about Christy being the eyes in for the audience in a lot of ways and that could not be more different than Violet, who I played in Season 3, a bad-at-it YouTuber who wishes she was as cool as a Kardashian. For me, that’s always exciting, when it’s such a big challenge. I hope for people following the show that it’s fun for them to come back and see some of our same actors doing something very different with the rest of our incredible new cast this year.
This season is super flashback-heavy, as we see the history of the Galloway family and how they play off each other, with familiarity breeding murderous contempt. How is it working with that much character backstory?
It’s incredible! I think some of the most fun in doing this show is that we have all eight scripts upfront and we shoot out of order, not block shoot them, so we’re really shooting a very long movie. There was a lot of time spent this year with Ian and I chatting and Chris and I chatting about filling in some gaps with this marriage and how this marriage was coming into this family. The Galloways are the type of people not to treat their own blood relatives super kindly so I found it really interesting that Christy had been part of this family for ten years but still felt like an outsider.
I think that was immediately a really great clue to grow with and because Chris and I have such great previous chemistry as friends, we were so excited about bringing that to the table, to watch a couple that has a lot of history as friends, I think that’s a really great starting point. But then we see that unravel, of course, because when this family is together, nothing is off the table and this cast is so spectacular and I think every actor and character could have a whole show about them, there’s such a full life for everybody to play off of each other.
This season plays out like an Agatha Christie whodunnit but in the way that only Slasher could do it, with people being ripped apart and the like. Whodunnits always have characters holding secrets from each other so how is it layering those subtleties into your performance?
It’s the most joyous part, really, of the job but also a show like this because it is such an ensemble. There is stuff that are secrets that we’ve built in our backstory that may never get talked about but are really, really important and are things that we lean on. Ian and I would check in and talk about what Christy’s job is and we felt that she was a therapist, we felt that early on though it’s not something we ever talked about on-camera, but it actually ended up informing a lot of acting decisions on the day. That stuff is so much fun and all the play is so exciting and juicy.
We never did a table read before the show so the first time we were together was in the room during blocking. There was a lot of preparing going on and talking about our respective character backgrounds and secrets but when we were at rehearsal and feeling that energy, I think there was so much unexpected stuff that came out of this season, the chemistry was very exciting. I think it really feels like a family and it’s one of my favorite storylines that Slasher has done because I feel like there’s so much drama in the family.
I feel like with that emphasis and limited number of sets, this is the most theater-oriented season of Slasher yet. As someone that’s done quite a bit of theater, how is it leaning into those sensibilities?
It’s so great you mention that because I totally feel that it has colors of theater. Ian speaks a lot about it kind of being like opera and there are so many theatrics to the genre but also to this show, especially this season, as you said. When I joined Season 2, I was on tour with a musical and I weirdly felt leaving a musical to come do Slasher, there was such a link, oddly, it was bizarre. I think you’re right, there is a contained set component: We’re all in a lot of scenes and we didn’t have that so much in Season 3 and that’s what gives each season its own identity.
This season, there was a lot of very long scenes that played out like a play, with entrances, exits and cues in way that, on TV, you don’t always get because it’s in shorter snippets. I feel it gives you the whole breadth of the emotion, it gave us a lot of time to ramp up. We were doing very long takes and it felt like a true company with our crew, we were cheering for each other in between setups like we were coming in to do a show, with lots of stunts. It was very thrilling and exciting like theater is.
Like you were saying, Slasher is your first major horror gig, with the genre having such heightened performances. How is it leaning into elevated premises?
I don’t know if I had ever screamed before in my life so, when we did Season 2 and I was screaming a lot, I would lose my voice a lot and Aaron Martin would call and say we had to redo some of my screams in ADR. Your body isn’t sometimes used to doing that, but now I’m an old pro so I can scream all day. I felt like like it’s so weirdly cathartic, certainly coming out of a pandemic, it was our first time socializing again and we weren’t in masks when we were shooting though not in between takes. We were all a bit nervous and on edge so, to get to run through the woods, was oddly timed and you think that stuff is going to be exhausting but I feel like there’s this little well inside of us that gets energized from stuff like that.
It’s been a really fascinating genre to play in and also something Aaron and Ian are so cognizant of is making sure that every death matters, that we really feel like we know the person and the full story of who we’re losing. And that becomes really earnest and honest to play too. The more real and pitched high, I think it becomes like a muscle that you get more used to doing, not that I’m ever used to seeing limbs flying and fake blood. [laughs]
What can tease about Slasher as it returns for Season 4 on Shudder?
I think this season has the biggest, most creative kills and a lot more betrayal. I think the stakes are higher than ever because, when family is involved, we feel those losses even more and those backstabs even more. I think it’s such an exciting season and having David Cronenberg involved, it was just so special and it was just such an exciting shoot for everybody across the board. I’m really excited about it having a home on Shudder where horror fans come to enjoy so I really hope we make good by everyone and that they like it!
Created by Aaron Martin, Slasher: Flesh & Blood premieres Aug. 12 on Shudder.
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