In 2016, CarousHELL was released, telling the story of a carousel unicorn who comes to life, only to go on a rampage. Duke, the bloodthirsty unicorn at the heart of the franchise, has gone on to star in two, soon to be three, more films. Solidifying his status as one of horror’s most unique killers. But did you know that he is also an LGBTQ+ icon?
Director and co-writer Steve Rudzinski never hid Duke’s bisexuality, but he reconfirmed his orientation in a recent Facebook post celebrating Pride Month. We spoke with Rudzinski about Duke’s sexuality and what we may expect from CarousHELL 4.
The Post
Ada: About a week ago, you posted a photo saying, “Happy Pride Month from Duke the bi-corn (bisexual unicorn).”
Steve: Only one horn, though.
Ada: Did you write Duke with his sexuality in mind?
Steve: Yes, from the start, I knew Duke was bisexual, and I played with immediately doing it in the first one. But I thought it would be we needed Duke’s son to be born. And so it just made the most sense to have Duke have, you know, like a hetero romance scene in the first film. Then have the homosexual love scene in the second film. Also, I just found that funny because I knew there was going to be a certain group of “fans” that would be very mad about that, and I wanted to make them mad specifically.
Ada: So, you thought people would be genuinely mad that a killer carousel unicorn is bisexual?
Steve: Oh, they were. They were extremely upset that I put something gay in the movie and I ruined it, and I ruined Duke by making him gay.
The Outrage
Ada: But isn’t he only partly gay, so partly “ruined?”
Steve: I don’t know how homophobes function. I can’t understand exactly why. I don’t know what it is about other sexualities that does upset people. But it’s not something to hide. So I was very, very excited to make sure that the protagonist of my insane comedy horror series is very openly bisexual. There is no head canon. There’s no fanfiction. There’s no what is he? It is very firm and official in the films.
Ada: Was that post officially confirming it, or did people kind of piece it together already? Even though it isn’t explicitly said there, we see Duke with men and women.
Steve: Well, I mean, he doesn’t say it, but the actions I feel demonstrated pretty clearly. It isn’t officially stated that he’s bisexual, so you could argue that he’s pansexual. But he is attracted to both men and women and had a specific romantic relationship with Otto in the past, apparently, as said in the second film.
Unicorn Hunting
Ada: I’ve noticed there’s a pattern in the first three films of Duke, either knowingly, inadvertently, or, I guess, at one point, kind of by force, getting involved in a couple’s dynamic. Is that an involuntary or knowing commentary on unicorn hunting in the community? Since he is a literal unicorn.
Steve: That was definitely not part of the plan. I’ll be fully honest with that. That is just a happy accident. I’ve commented on it since, but originally, it was just the fact that Aleen [Isley, co-writer] had the idea for the carousel series, and she knew that it had to be a killer carousel unicorn. And she really, really, really wanted Duke to have a child because she wanted to reference the ending of Bride of Chucky with the ending of CarousHELL One. You know, that was the initial reasoning of why Robbie existed. Me making Duke bisexual was just my choice without even without even thinking of the unicorn hunting aspect of it. But it’s hilarious that that was just an accident.
Ada: There are parts where people don’t realize he is sentient yet, and things are being done to Duke that do raise some questions of consent. Then there is a full-on threesome where he is clearly participating.
Steve: Yeah. Everything is meant to be consensual. Some people do misinterpret the first one sometimes because Duke’s getting touched at first, but then he consents, and Sarah absolutely was consenting. She’s just very upset that she cheated after she got post-nut clarity.
CarousHELL 4
Ada: Yeah, that’ll get ya every time. So, you’re still working on CarousHELL 4. Would you mind giving any details about that or how it’s tying into the series overall?
Steve: Absolutely, in fact, I would even say officially CarousHELL 4 is out digitally at least to the backers that supported it. I’m going to be authoring the discs later tonight into the weekend. It should be available physically in my store a week from now [June, 10th], if not less time than that.
Ada: fantastic!
The Timeline
Steve: CarousHELL 4, picks up its real time. So CarousHELL takes place in 2016. CarousHELL 2 is in 2021 to 2022, and then CarousHELL 3 is in 2023. CarousHELL 4 is 2026. So, it is a full 10 years after Robbie was born. Judy, Robbie’s human adoptive mother, is pointing out to Duke, “Hey, Robbie aged like way quicker than a human child would, you know, assumingly cuz he’s part unicorn, but now he hasn’t aged at all in like the past several years. Like, he hasn’t gotten any older. I think he’s scared of growing up. You need to talk to your son and help him come to terms with things changing and being okay with that, and becoming an adult eventually cuz he has the magic to stop himself from aging.”
The Plot
Steve: So Duke takes him to a cabin in the woods for a nice father-son getaway. They have a wonderful day, and then when they go into the cabin, Robbie so happens to find the Neco Meowacon, the cat book of the dead, which has been in my universe since a Meowy Halloween. He finds a passage where he sees he could bring the dead back to life for a little while.
So he uses that trying to meet his birth mother cuz he never got to meet her. She was dead before he was even here, and that really scares him. He’s scared of death. He’s scared of losing people in his life. So he reads from the Neco Meowacon and the Leviathan, one of the old gods in my universe, so happens to hear it instead. The passage brings back a bunch of people that Duke has killed over the past 10 years as zombie demons. And since they’re threatening Robbie, Duke has to fight out of the cabin from the last room in the cabin all the way to the front in order to wipe everyone out to protect his son.
More Unicorn Action
Ada: I believe you posed that this was mostly focusing on just the carousel unicorns this time.
Steve: Duke stops at a gas station. You know, there are a couple of human characters before they get to the cabin. Once they get to the cabin, it is just Duke, Robbie, and then the zombie demons. And the zombie demons don’t have much characterization. I’ll fully admit to that. This is Duke and Robbie’s story, completely.
Is Duke Done With Couples?
Ada: I think it’s safe to say that Duke isn’t going to get into any divorce doula shenanigans on this one.
Steve: Unfortunately, no, not this one. It just doesn’t make sense for the story. I love sex scenes in horror movies. I will never cover that up. I’ll never like feel ashamed of that. I think that they are fun. I think that they can be silly. There’s nothing wrong with human sexuality. There’s nothing wrong with human nudity, so long as everyone’s consenting and everyone’s well taken care of.
Sex Scenes in CarousHELL
Steve: With the CarousHELL movies, the first scene had to happen because we had to make Robbie and we also wanted to just have a really funny sex scene. In the second one, I wanted to do the same thing except make it very romantic, which made it even funnier to me that it was such a romantic, gentle scene. When we got to CarousHELL 3, we needed it with Usagi in order to give her the little bunnies. So, we could use those as the mind controllers. But also, it was just a simple joke about the fact that the third CarousHELL needed a threesome. I couldn’t avoid the number three.
With CarousHELL 4, I think Alen and I toyed around a little tiny bit very early on in the outline. “What if like a bunch of the babes that Duke killed come back and like there’s an orgy scene?” We’re like nah, we don’t need that. We just don’t need that. That’s not what this story is about. That would take away from what we’re actually focused on and what we’re doing with the story and the message and the themes of this one. Since, you know, this is kind of starting to pass the baton on to Robbie, Robbie isn’t known for that. So, I don’t feel like we need that in this fourth film.
Although Steve Rampichi [who voices Duke], one of his first comments after reading the script, aside from loving it, was like, “Hey, I uh I can’t help but notice I don’t get to have sex in this one.” He was joking, but it was very funny to point out in the Duke voice as well.
Ending the Streak
Ada: You definitely painted yourself into a corner with three. Definitely set up a pattern by that point. And and you’re right, it wouldn’t make sense to the storyline. You don’t want to “Oh my god you killed Kenny it. [An old running joke on South Park that the creators got sick of.]
Steve: Exactly.
Ada: It doesn’t need to be an obligatory thing if it doesn’t fit.
Steve: Yeah. I think we’re we’re probably done with it for a little while. Eventually, when I say eventually, I don’t know if we’re doing sequels. It completely depends on whether four like does really well and like brings us new fans. But in the future, we have already been discussing Robbie getting like an actual romantic relationship. He won’t be a different partner every film like his dad was. In the same sense, I haven’t decided if Robbie is going to be gay or straight yet. I don’t want him to be bi or pan like his dad is. So, I want him to be one or the other. So, that way, he keeps standing out as his own character and his own unicorn. But I haven’t decided yet.
Directing Duke
Ada: Directing sex scenes with people can be an awkward situation. Does using a literal carousel unicorn add levity to it?
Steve: I’ve been doing this 16 years now, and half of my library is horror comedy. So I’ve done sex scenes between two human beings multiple times. Everyone likes me; everyone who has done the sex scene for my films has always been very willing to come back. I always make sure they’re very comfortable. You know there’s a lot of communication. I make it a very, very skeleton crew set all the time. Aleen and I have talked to people about intimacy coordinators, and we were always very honest like, “Yeah, we don’t have them, but we do this and this and this and this and this and this and this.” And everyone’s like, “Well, that’s what an intimacy coordinator does.” We’re like, “Yeah, we know. We just aren’t licensed, but we want to take care of people.”
Ada: Be Your Own Damn Intimacy Coordinator.
Creating Comfortable Sets
Steve: Very, very well reviewed, and I genuinely mean that. So, when we’re doing the scene with an inanimate object. It’s already as safe and as comfortable as we usually make it on our sets if there were two people. So, we’re doing all the same stuff when it comes to that, but it absolutely adds levity and makes it so much more fun and silly when it’s only one naked person on top of something that isn’t alive. Like, there’s no body awkwardness. Even as professional as you are and everyone’s on the same page, and no one’s like being a creep or anything, there’s still a little level of weirdness even though it’s your job and your profession. And everyone knows we’re pretending, and it’s not sexy, and nothing’s wrong.
It’s just easier when it’s not another person. And in that sense, I can also have the actor basically be completely in charge of the scene. Like, there’s no mutual consent when one of the sex partners is literally not alive. So, it’s very easy, you know, for me to tell Haley Jay in the first film or even Terence [Lee] Cover in the second film like, “what are you comfortable with doing? What do you want to do?” You come up with stuff that you’re okay with doing and also will make us laugh.
Taking Things Seriously While Laughing
Steve: And so, they’re able to actually take a lot of the power in the scene for that. Even for the threesome in CarousHELL 3, even though that was two people in the room together again since they were consistently on like opposite sides of the bunny. It was never a weird thing for either of them because they were both focused on this basically chocolate rabbit, and they kept on just kind of swapping ideas. Like, “What if we did this position with the rabbit?” And yada. yada.
It just makes it a lot more silly and a lot more fun, which is always the intent of Aleen and I, when we were doing the scenes and conceiving of them originally. You know, we want these scenes to make people laugh at the absurdity of it. And that’s exactly how it felt on set to the actors and to the few crew members there as we kept on trying not to laugh and ruin takes.
Representation
Ada: Anything you would like to add about either Duke’s sexuality or CarousHELL 4?
Steve: One thing I will say with Duke is that being seen matters and representation matters, and sometimes, to cite Red Letter Media, sometimes Hollywood and major studios will do passive progressiveness. Where they put something in the background so that it’s really easy to cut out when they release it in other countries or if they get too much backlash from a certain political group. We don’t get as many main lead protagonists who are a different sexuality unless it is a film about gay people. So, I really always did like the idea of doing this series, that’s a horror comedy, and it’s about revenge, it’s about Nazis, it’s about fatherhood, it’s about all this stuff, and the protagonist just so happens to be bisexual.
As a bisexual man, I want to see that more often, where it’s not necess necessarily a joke. I very often have to say that the sex scene in two the joke isn’t that they’re gay, you know, that’s not the joke. The joke is that there are two men being extremely gentle with each other, except one of the men is a goddamn carousel unicorn still. That’s what’s so funny about it and like everything’s over the top because that’s what the movie is.
Some People’s Breaking Point
Steve: So it’s just it’s like it’s just playing the sexuality straight. But in this tongue-in-cheek, insane world and of everything that people accept, somehow, for some people, that’s the thing they can’t accept. And that’s why I think it’s important to do. You know, this is again, this isn’t a fanfiction. This is not a theory. This is very firm. This is the story. This is shown on the screen of who Duke is and what Duke is. And that’s who Duke is. And people love Duke, and that should be how it is; it shouldn’t matter. But I guess it still does, which is insane in 2026. And I think it’ll always matter.
The least we can do as independent creators. We can’t just tell studios what we want to see. As independent artists, as lower-level artists, if we want to see something, we got to start putting that into the world. We have to make that ourselves in spite of the other side who always told us to do that and now get mad that we do that. We can’t stop, you know, and that, and I don’t even do with everything.
Diversity
Steve: Curtains for Christmas also had a lot of gay representation. There’s a lesbian couple, there was a gay couple, other characters throughout my films have also been gay or bisexual or pan or lesbian. Yet, I also do characters that are completely meant to be straight. You know, you know, the protagonist of Curtains for Christmas, she was straight.
Wally Griswald from the Meowis, he is a straight character that I portray. There’s so much that I do as much as I can because I think it’s important to show the community as much as I can where makes sense. And i and that may come off as wrong cuz everyone’s sexuality always makes sense. I guess I just mean in the sense of like the story that I’m telling this character has to be straight for the story or this character doesn’t have to be straight so can I make them not straight or vice versa?
CarousHELL 4 & The Universe
Steve: As for CarousHELL 4, it’s CarousHELL 4 is a story that Aleen and I actually first came up with it on the set of CarousHELL 2 back in 2021. It made us laugh, but we knew it couldn’t be three. That was it wouldn’t match the themes that we wanted to tackle with three. It wouldn’t make sense, but it really makes sense for the 10th anniversary of this franchise. The places we go in this film, no one could guess if they only watched the first movie. Like, nobody watching CarousHELL in 2016, or if they discovered it today without seeing the trailers for anything else, no one could even fathom the places we go in CarousHELL 4.
I love that. I am so proud of that. It really feels like a culmination of my career. It feels like a culmination of the franchise. You know, if this does end up being the last one, it really feels like the perfect epilogue to the trilogy. If it does well and it ends up being a new beginning, it really feels like a fresh start, where now we can go anywhere. It’s something that I hope fans and newcomers find something to fall in love with.
Homage
Steve: It’s a love letter to the Evil Dead films. Those are why I decided to make movies to begin with. It’s a love letter to the whole franchise. And it really is, in my opinion, a love letter to the fans that have been on the train of this franchise from the start. There’s a lot of callbacks, but it doesn’t depend on them. You know, you don’t necessarily need to know who all the characters are that are showing up, in this that are returning from the previous films. But that will add layers of appreciation and even sentimental moments if you do go into four watching the other three. I do want people to know that they could just start with four. You can watch that and then go back and watch the series and see how we got to this point.
But there are a lot of there’s messages about saying goodbye to people you love, of keeping them in your memory, of change being part of life, and that’s what makes life worth living. It’s just about becoming who you’re meant to be. If there’s one singular message with CarousHELL 4, even though the trailer only shows insane, wacky violence and cartoon character demons getting butchered by Duke, the theme of CarousHELL 4 is to become who you’re meant to be. Although that does not necessarily make it a queer story compared to the first several, even though Duke is still bisexual. I do think that is something that applies to the community; you shouldn’t be afraid of who you are and just accept it to get to that next level.
Indie Films & The LGBTQ+ Community
Ada: Kevin Smith said he always tries to add a gay character because his older brother is gay, and said he just never saw himself on screen.
Steve: Which is awesome.
Ada: Yeah, that’s kind of the thing when you talk about representation. It’s not this big, nasty conspiracy certain people want to make it into. It’s just people wanting to see themselves on screen like everybody else.
Steve: Yeah. Exactly.
Ada: I’ve noticed such a big uptick specifically in the indie horror I’m seeing out of this region (MD, PA, OH, NJ, and MI) within the past, I’d say three or four years.
Answering to No One (Well Aside From Me Right Now)
Steve: It helps that at the indie level, we aren’t answering to anyone since we rarely have investors. It’s very often crowdfunding or out of pocket or it’s like small investors that don’t have any power over it. We aren’t dependent on making everyone in the audience happy because we’re already so niche. I don’t care if I lose all of my homophobic fans. I don’t want them to be my fans anyway.
So long as you’re able to tell the story you want to tell. And you do need to make a profit if you want to keep going. But I think we keep on demonstrating that we can have this sort of representation in these characters. And clearly it’s working. You know, none of us are necessarily getting rich. But we aren’t losing all of our sales like some people on that side like to claim. I have made more money by going as woke as I have. If anything, I go woke become unbroke. It seems to be the case here.
Finding An Audience
Steve: I don’t mean everything will be successful, but almost everything has some kind of audience and as you keep growing, you can find that audience more. I mean I my talking cat movies are meant for children. You know they’re family films for kids, and they are full of ACAB messaging and also will have gay characters in them. They clean up, even though I have these very stern political points made hilariously because it’s a cartoon for children. I never feel like I can’t express that stuff in my films. For every one person that gets angry at me for that, there are 10 more that actually give me their money. So, why wouldn’t I just keep doing what I’m doing instead of trying to listen to the people full of hate?
Where to Find Steve
Ada: Where can people follow your work?
Steve: Folks can visit my website for all of my physical media, like DVDs and Blu-rays. That pays me much more than streaming. I have a Patreon. $2.99 a month gets you all my modern films. $4.99 a month gets you all the movies plus every bonus feature I’ve ever made and a ton of exclusives that I made for the service. It’s about 50 hours of content total. And I fully recommend and encourage people to like bookmark the movies and keep them forever, even if you unsubscribe. I don’t mind. Just please don’t share them. And otherwise, yeah, most of my features are available on Tubi.
We’d like to thank Steve Rudzinski for speaking with us today about his bisexual killer carosuel unicorn Duke. Check out the CarousHELL trilogy currently streaming for free, with ads, on Tubi!
Happy Pride from the staff here at NerdBot.
