The Creative Mind of Brian Pulido – Part 1. Origins

I met with Brian at a Borders bookstore here in Arizona, the same one where we first met to discuss the Voices of the Dead music video he directed. I brought my trusty hand held recorder, and a few pages of questions with the intent to dig deeper into the creative force that is Brian Pulido. Not only is Brian a writer, director, producer, and comic creator (Lady Death, Evil Ernie) but has a positive “can do” attitude, and entrepreneurial spirit that I admire. His current movie project, The Graves, that he wrote and directed (and features Calabrese), has been added to the After Dark Horrorfest – 8 Films to Die For. The After Dark Horrorfest runs for one week in theatres across the United States from January 29 – February 5, making it the largest nationwide film festival. Be sure to check it out. Now on with the interview!
Part 1 - Origins

Jimmy Calabrese: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about growing up in New Jersey.

Brian Pulido: I grew up in Long Branch New Jersey, on the wrong side of the tracks, until about first grade. We lived on Joline Avenue in this creepy three story house. One of my earliest recollections was of a little mouse caught in a vent grate in the second story. I was trying to get my family’s attention about this mouse and no one would listen. Later that night while we were eating at the kitchen table, which was directly above the grate, the mouse fell and landed in my mother’s tea cup. That was living on Joline Avenue.

JC: Laughs.
BP: My mom turned me on to horror movies and crazy movies. I'd watch shows like Chiller Theater, and Creature Feature as a kid. My childhood really was a blast. We came from very modest means. I think we were pretty poor the first couple of years of my life, but I was a kid and wouldn't know the difference. We never went without a meal.

When I was seven or eight, we moved to the other side of town called Elberon, which was a nice middle class side of town. Growing up was great there. That was a time when people would have their doors open, and as a kid you would wander around into different people’s houses; have a snack, see what's going on. You could cut through people’s backyards, and it was no big deal back then. You felt like Huck Finn back then, great times.

JC: Your life as a child sounds great, but I heard you had a reading disability? How did that affect you?

BP: As a kid, when I moved from one side of the track to the other, so to speak, the new school did not recognize that I had it, so I got left back a grade. That was emotionally devastating. I thought that was flawed. But being a kid you can get over things pretty quickly. The turning point for me was when they put me in this special reading class in third grade. They would teach you to read with these stories that were color coded. That in particular got me excited for reading. I started with the easy stuff like Dick and Jane, ultimately getting to more complicated stories. I got seduced by reading. By third grade I learned the value of reading, and I caught up. I took off and became a voracious reader and story teller. I even ended up writing my own comics and half baked stories. As early as fifth grade I wrote my own versions of what would happen if I were in the middle of Night of the Living Dead.
JC: If you didn’t go through that struggle and hardship, do you think you would still love reading and writing as much?

BP: It's hard to say if I would or wouldn't have gone to that level of reading. But I've gravitated to it. I'm still a voracious reader to this day. I'll have five or ten different things going at once, in all the different bathrooms in my house.

JC: Laughs.

BP: Right now, I'm reading The Steven King Companion, finishing up a story called Plague Year. I have five or six magazine articles that range everywhere from business to home theater. I think it might have been luck that I connected with something that I enjoy.

JC: And didn't your family own a business?

BP: My dad was a short order chef for most of my life at the Sand Piper Restaurant. My dad made the best sandwiches, burgers, and home fries. My mom was the head waitress at a Mob run restaurant until she passed away.

JC: Which Mob?

BP: Everybody’s dead, I don't say nothin’. But it was on the Jersey shores.

JC: Laughs.

BP: Literally they are all dead. But my sister and her husband owned nail salons and hair salons. So I was in that environment too. As a strange aside, I used to cut hair. I was into punk and that was the punk thing to do, be a punk skateboarder who cut hair. I was the dude in the neighborhood who did that. I did that all the way into college to make extra money.

JC: So growing up around those family businesses, did that inspire your entrepreneurial streak?

BP: For sure, observing my sister and brother-in-law in business, trying new businesses and trying new things, mapped my brain out. In my adult life I've worked as an employee at a business for only nine months, the first nine months of college, and since then I've been on my own. So I saw how they would do it. Not only would they own their business, but they might do a publishing venture. They also attempted a cheesecake business, which didn't work but they just kept going. Yeah, I think I learn from them.

JC: How does your family feel about the horror aspect of what you do?

BP: My sister is unconditionally supportive. What I do in particular is not to her taste but she has always been supportive. I give her a lot of credit because in many low points in my life she's been the person to be there, to prop me up. Like when I was a teen having trouble with girls, she'd give me the inside scoop on how to handle it. There were also tough times financially when I went to college. I was the first one in our family that went to college, and she helped financially and emotionally. My sister has always been unconditionally supportive of me.

JC: You’ve said in past interviews that your mom was a horror fan, and that she brought you to see Night of the Living Dead when you were seven years old. Why would your mother do such a thing!

BP: I don't know, but it was amazing. I think it was the first weekend that the movie came out. My mother brought me and my sister, and our two friends. I'm guessing she took us because we were used to movies like the Amazing Colossal Man, and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Although, they were totally scary to me as a kid, they were not of the level of Night of the Living Dead. When we went to that movie it was a whole different reckoning.

I think some people can look at that movie today and not feel the fear that we did. When we saw that movie, within fifteen minutes we were totally and utterly terrified. The fear was palpable. We actually left early cause it was too much for us. We went to visit our Aunt Loretta, who happened to live in a house off the main road, which just happened to look like the one from the movie, a little deserted farm house which terrified us even more. It took a couple of years later to finally face the fear and watch the movie all the way through. I probably sweat like ten pounds because of the nightmares it gave me. To me, that movie was a whole other level.

JC: So was that your defining horror movies moment? Is that how you got hooked on horror?

BP: It is. To this day, I like all sorts of horror to some degree, but that total nihilistic apocalyptic situation, where there's an evil outside force that's super dominant, but the true evil is among the people, who fight amongst each other…when that is done well, it's the tastiest stuff to me. It's ruined me in a way because those are the movies I'm always looking for. Recently the movie The Mist was satisfying. So was 28 Days Later from a couple of years ago. Those heavy nihilistic siege movies are remarkable, and few and far between. Studio horror movies like the Orphan are just not for me. I couldn't care less. The Exorcist is another great movie. The multiple layers of taboo that is violated, the amount of horror that is inflicted on that family is outrageous to this day. It just ruins you for other horror films, they are just so damn good, and the other ones just don't give you the buzz.

JC: What kind of comics did you read as a child? What was the fist comic that got you hooked?
BP: I've read comics consistently since 1970, but I distinctly remember Captain America starting in August of 1976, I think. Issue 176, which is very interesting - Captain America quits. Captain America sees something go down and he quits. Being a guy cognizant of the politics during the Nixon era, it was very interesting to pick up Captain America at the moment in time when Captain America was also disillusioned by his government. I also like comics you’d imagine I'd like such as Werewolf by Night, and Man Thing. I actually enjoyed a lot of superhero kinda stuff, and I still do. I was more of a Marvell guy, than a DC guy. I also have a collect of Where Monsters Dwell, and Monsters on the Prowl.

When I was a kid, about 12 years old, I was really smart about comics. When the new comics would come out on a Wednesday, I would grab all the #1 issue of something. I would get every single #1 from everywhere in town before everyone else. I then told kids I had a collector’s items and sold them for 20 times the value. I was really intelligent on the comics until I grew up just enough to where girls took over my brain.

To be continued… HERE