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Tis the Season for Horror (and Humor) at Dead Park

Dead Park: The Series available on Kindle

I love the Dead Park series. I love these stories so much. Over the past few years, the books, first inspired by my late father, have become a bit of a sandbox. Ideas, fragments of stories, and unfinished projects from the last twenty years have all found released within this series. At least two more books are coming.

In Dead Park, anything creepy, strange, or gory can happen. This eerie community counts everything from vampires to killer puppets to Mothman to a doll with teeth to Bigfoot himself as residents. Heck, even Mad Man Pondo, the real life deathmatch legend, makes a cameo.

Right now, you can get all four books on Kindle with one click for $11.96. Three of the four books – one about an office building, one about a mall, and one about a suburb – are story compilations, all based in one location. Book three, aka Dead Park Records, is a stand-alone novella with connections to the notorious office building that started it all, Dead Park Plaza.

If you like short stories; if you like humor with your horror; if you like relentless chaos, unexpected twists, and a splatter of insanity – and blood – give the series a try.

Order now on Kindle.

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Tony Acree Answers 3 Irrelevant Questions

Hand of God by Tony Acree.

Tony Acree is a novelist, screenwriter, and publisher. He created the Victor McCain Thrillers and co-wrote of the Samantha Tyler Thrillers with Rachael Rawlings and Mary Ellen Quire. Both series were optioned by Dark Harbor Pictures to become streaming shows.

Tony also wrote a humor book titled Tell Me More: My Conversations with Scammers, My Twins and Storeclerks. His screenplay, Songs of Bloody Harlan, was optioned by Jamezz Hampton and 1209 Productions for the silver screen, and he is currently working on the next Victor McCain novel, The Unit. 

Oh yeah, and at comic cons and author fairs, he is frequently mistaken fro George Lucas. No, really!

Not George Lucas.
This is Tony Acree, not George Lucas.

But that’s not important right now.

Tony Acree is today’s featured artist answering the 3 irrelevant questions.

What is one of your favorite guilty pleasure movies, and for heaven’s sake… why?

No doubt for me it is the Lake House, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. I love Sandra Bullock and have since she first smiled in Demolition Man. The movie has a goofy romantic plot, with Sandra and Keanu talking via letter across time. Anytime I see it playing, I stop and watch it. I am a hopeless romantic at heart. I’d wait for Sandra Bullock. 

If you could have all access to any animal for a day, what animal would it be and why?

For me it would be the snow leopard at the Louisville Zoo. The dude oozes cool, and any time I’m there, he looks at me like he wants to get to know me, too. Like, really close. I need to put a snow leopard into a book. 

You’re hungry, and you have access to both a fast car and a private jet. Where are you going for your ultimate snack, and what makes that food/place/experience the best? 

I’m hopping on a private jet to eat some lamb shank and shepherd’s pie in Dublin, ireland. I am Scotch/Irish by heritage and love the food. And what better place to eat Irish food than Ireland? When I’m done eating, then I’ll have several glasses of Redbreast 22 year Irish Whiskey. With a designated driver. 

Click here to visit Tony’s website and check out his books.

Hand of God by Tony Acree.

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Goldilocks: Little Girl Lost or Mad Stalker?

An evil Goldi Locks stalks the three bears in The Big Bad Goodnight by John Cosper.

I’ve always loved fairy tales. I love playing around with fairy tales even more. I once wrote a play that surmised that the Prince Charming in all fairy tales was the same guy. The various princesses put two and two together and sought out a hit squad of little girls – including that little burglar Goldilocks and the homicidal Red Riding Hood – to get some revenge.

As much as I love fairy tales, I also love film noir. For me, it doesn’t get much better than the sinister vibes of Double Indemnity, Key Largo, or Cape Fear. Not the remake, mind you. Nolte and DeNiro were fine. But Robert Mitchum’s portrayal in the original is a villain without peer. Insidious. Relentless. And always smiling.

The Big Bad Goodnight, my homage to both fairy tales and film noir, began with just one, simple story about a down on his luck wolf trying to make one last score and get out of town. It grew to be more when the notion came to me to combine Robert Mitchum’s Max Cady into one sinister character.

What if Goldilocks went to the Bears’ house on purpose? What if there was a history between Goldilocks and one of the bears? And what if Goldilocks was just a little unhinged?

As much fun as it was to write the story, seeing my dark, monstrous Goldi brought to life by the wonderful Meredith Lee Ann Keller was even better. Meredith is one of the sweetest ladies you’ll ever meet, and a terrific actress. And boy, did she bring out the crazy in the teaser film created to promote The Big Bad Goodnight.

If you like a good fairy tale, and a good film noir, check out the video above. Then order your signed copy of The Big Bad Goodnight. Because not every tale ends happily ever after, know what I’m sayin’?

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For My Dad

 

Several summers ago, I attended Fright Night Film Festival in Louisville. The inside of the hotel was almost as sweltering hot as the exterior, but that didn’t stop a few hundred of us from jamming into a ballroom to listen to horror master John Carpenter answer questions about his career.

One exchange really stuck with me. A very goth-looking young woman asked Mr. Carpenter what advice he would give to someone who wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a horror director in Hollywood.

“Well, I went to Hollywood to make Westerns,” said Carpenter. “So I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”

I can relate to that statement more today than ever. I never set out to write books about pro wrestling, but I’ve written more than twenty. And if you told 8 year old me I would one day write HORROR? I never would have believed you. I loved science fiction. Specifically, I loved STAR WARS. So how did I, an aspiring screenwriter and author of science fiction flights of fancy, turn to horror?

It’s my Dad’s fault.

Dead Park Plaza and its growing list of sequels would not have happened without my dad. My dad loved horror. Not all horror, mind you, but a good chunk. He liked a good scare, but he also liked horror-comedy. He’s the one who introduced me to William Castle, Ed Wood, Army of Darkness, and many of my favorites.

My dad had a direct influence on one of the stories in Dead Park Plaza. One morning in mid-February of 2021, I heard my phone buzz. I was still in bed, but my Dad was already up and texting me. He had dreamed something he thought would make a great horror story, a story that took place in an office setting, and he wanted to share it with me. It was a clever idea, and I think (I hope) I replied back and said so. I wasn’t working on any fiction at that time, so I kind of put it out of my mind.

It was one of the last texts my Dad ever sent me. It might have been the very last. A few days later my mother rushed him to the hospital. Nine days later, after transferring to rehab and then back to the hospital, he was diagnosed with cancer on his birthday February 28.

A week after that diagnosis, he was gone.

Four months later, Dad’s story idea drifted back into my mind. I didn’t see potential for a full novel, but it felt like a great short story. That’s when I started connecting the dots, from Dad’s story to a few others I’d been mulling over – stories that took place in an office.

Today, I have a job for a virtual company that allows me to work from home, the coffee shop, the library, or wherever I feel like. I work with incredible people and two amazing bosses who actually believe in me. For the first time in my life, I look forward to starting work each day.

But in 2021?

In 2021 I was still getting up every morning and driving to an office that, at the time, was refusing to acknowledge that I’d been given a promotion, dragging their feet backfilling my old role.

I spent most of my adult life, more than 20 years, driving to an office, working in cubicle,  being forced to make new “friends” on a recurring basis as people left or were let go (including me, a few times), working with good and not-so-good people, working for great and TERRIBLE bosses left a mark.

All that “work experience” fostered story ideas. Little fragments taking up real estate in my imagination, just waiting for their moment. “What if,” I thought, “These stories all took place in the same office building? You know, like Sideways Stories from Wayside School?”

One story became a group of three, then five, then seven.

The first book literally came together in a month. A scattered group of half-cooked stories all came together in the most remarkable way. I recently published book four in the series, and books five, six, and seven are in the works.

And all because my my Dad’s crazy idea about a man starting a new job and discovering a message warning him he’s in grave danger.

Without that text, there would be no Dead Park Plaza and no Dead Park Books. The whole identity of my fiction publishing would not exist without that germ of an idea he sent me.

I was still in denial about my Dad’s passing when the first book was published, and as I write this (revised) blog post, I’m still pretty much in the denial stage about my Dad’s passing, by the way. Wondering if I’ll ever move on from that, but grateful that he gave me the gift of a story, a book, and much more.

Click here to order your signed copy of Dead Park Plaza.

Kindle Reader? Click here to get the full Dead Park series at a special price!

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Dead Park Records: Emily’s Bad Day

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me about a friend of hers. His job was to fulfill rider contracts for major recording artists when they came to town to do a concert. Most of the items in the rider had to do with creature comforts, like the meals backstage and the accommodations in the dressing room. You can Google some of these and read what your favorite artist used to demand. Some of them are pretty outrageous.

My friend went on to tell me that her friend often had to fulfill some off-the-book requirements. You know, picking up things you couldn’t ask for in a legal document. That led to a short story that I called The Rider. That in turn led to a screenplay, also called The Rider.

And then, Dead Park Plaza happened.

A year an a half ago, I realized I’d written a Dead Park Plaza story long before I dreamed of the place. That story is now in print as Dead Park Records, the third book in the Dead Park trilogy.

What’s more, a character I introduced in the teaser for the first book, has become one of the focal points of this story. Remember Emily?

This sweet little thing wasn’t even in Dead Park Plaza. But thanks to her involvement with Cale, someone now wants her dead.

I had a ton of fun putting together a series of teasers for Dead Park Records with actress Christina Cannon and Lisa McConnell, who both appeared in the Dead Park Plaza trailer. Watch the short films below, then click here to get your signed copy. 

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Coming in 2023

Three new fiction books are in the works for 2023, with one ready to launch.

Dead Park Records will be book three in the Dead Park series. Unlike the first two volumes, this is not a short story collection but a full novella about one of the many businesses located in Dead Park Plaza. An aspiring musician receives the offer of a lifetime when an artist repped by Dead Park Records comes to town for a concert. He will get the recording contract of his dreams, no questions asked, no audition required. There’s just one catch: he must murder a woman he’s never met in cold blood.

Not far behind will be Dead Park Estates, the inevitable third story collection in the series that dives into evil residing in the premiere subdivision built in Dead Park. Murder, mayhem, monsters, cryptids, new mysteries, and a surprising crossover with another Dead Park novel (anyone read Die Alan Die?) reside within the pages of Dead Park, book four.

There’s also a sequel to my romantic thriller Girl Most Likely to Kill You on the way. Currently titled Girl Most Likely to Get You Killed, the new story begins with a woman named Andrea looking for a new life having the wrong person’s belongings delivered to her new home. It turns out the ugly clothes and furniture belong to an international assassin, and as soon as they get delivered, a host of rivals seeking revenge show up, thinking Andrea is their long-sought target.

Finally, I have a new short film project that will be released in January. Back in 2020 my son and I collaborated on The World’s Shortest Horror Films, a series that depicted people in horror movie situations acting with… extreme self-control and common sense and thus avoiding terror. The new series, The World’s Shortest Noir Films, takes the same approach with the world of gumshoes, thugs, nogoodnicks, secret Nazis, and femme fatales. It stars some of my favorite past collaborators including Sonny Burnette, George Robert Bailey, Cory Burdette, the lovely Christina Cannon, and the always delightful Roni Jonah.

Thanks to everyone who has made this first official year of Dead Park Books a hit. Happy New Year, and Happy Reading in 2023!