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Creature Feature Audiobook #BlogTour
Creature Feature by Steven Paul Leiva Directed and narrated by Seamus Dever, voiced by Juliana Dever (both from the hit show, “Castle”!) with music by Ray Zeigler!
About the Book:
THERE IS SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENING IN PLACIDVILLE!
It is 1962. Kathy Anderson, a serious actress who took her training at the Actors Studio in New York, is stuck playing Vivacia, the Vampire Woman on Vivacia’s House of Horrors for a local Chicago TV station.
Finally fed up showing old monster movies to creature feature fans, she quits and heads to New York and the fame and footlights of Broadway.
She stops off to visit her parents and old friends in Placidville, the all-Ameican, middle-class, blissfully normal Midwest small town she grew up in.
But she finds things are strange in Placidville.
Kathy’s parents, her best friend from high school, the local druggist, even the Oberhausen twins are all acting curiously creepy, odiously odd, and wholly weird. Especially the town’s super geeky nerd, Gerald, who warns of dark days ahead.
Has Kathy entered a zone in the twilight? Did she reach the limits that are outer? Has she fallen through a mirror that is black? Or is it just—just—politics as usual!
Estimated Length: 4.4 hours
Publisher: Magpie Press; (Spring 2021)
Publication Date: TBD
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Language: English
Available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunesOrder on #Amazon now: https://tinyurl.com/
y5p94k3e Not an audiobook reader? Grab an e-Book copy of the book for only $.99! For a limited time only! https://tinyurl.com/
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Juliana Dever is a professional actor, writer, and world traveler. She’s best known for her role as Jenny Ryan on the globally popular show Castle. Recently you may have seen her brilliant per-formance in “Stalked by My Husband’s Ex” on Lifetime. Having traveled to over 60 countries, her award-winning travel blog CleverDeverWherever.com (named Best Independent Travel Blog in North America) helps readers find unexpected experiences in unusual places. She curates ad-ventures though former communist countries and Frommer’s listed her tours as a trend that will shape travel.
Seamus Dever is best known to television audiences as Detective Kevin Ryan on ABC’s Castle. He played Sherlock Holmes in the Audie Award-winning “Hound of the Baskervilles” with LA Theatre Works and has 10 other radio plays with them and the BBC. He is the voice of the villain John Seed in the hit video game “Far Cry 5” and originated the DC Comic’s bad guy Trigon on “Titans.” Dever has performed in over 80 plays and has 300 hours of television to his name. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Juliana.
About the Author:
A Scribe award-winner, receiving the praise of Ray Bradbury and the Oscar-winning film producer, Richard Zanuck, Steven Paul Leiva is no stranger to the business of telling a good story. Author of several novels, and with a writing-style that lays hard on the satire, this Hollywood-escapee doesn’t pull punches when it comes to politics.
Need to know more? Follow him on Amazon or Goodreads, or check out his blog here: http://emotionalrationalist.blogspot. com/p/about-steven-paul-leiva. html HORROR AND HUMOR: STORYTELLING BLOOD BROTHERS
By Steven Paul Leiva
Have you ever noticed that a blood-curdling scream and a raucous belly laugh have much in common? They both are automatic responses—you couldn’t stop them if you tried. They come after either an unexpected fright, in the case of the blood-curdling scream, on an unexpected joke, or pratfall, in the case of the raucous belly laugh. This is also true for a quick intake of breath after a slight scare and a chuckle after a witty jab. I don’t know if horror and humor are controlled by the same area of the brain, but if not, their separate areas must be, at the very least, good neighbors.
This is why mixing horror with humor is a good bet for creating something entertaining. And why I took on the challenge in my novel, Creature Feature: A Horrid Comedy. It takes place in the 1960s when Kathy Anderson, an Actors Studio trained thespian of earnest intent, is stuck in Chicago playing Vivacia the Vampire Woman, hostess of a local late-night TV creature feature movie show. Disgusted with being a sex object for geeks and nerds, she quits the show to head for Broadway and a brilliant theatrical career. She stops off on the way to see her folks in Placidville, the small town she grew up in. But her parents seem a little, shall we say, off. As do the neighbors. And her best friend from high school, Mary. And especially Mary’s brother, Gerald, the geekiest nerd (or nerdiest geek, if you prefer) in town. He tries to warn her of dire, dark, and dastardly doings, but Kathy just won’t listen.
As the novel spoofs old monster movies, I looked to precedents such as Abbot and Costello Meets Frankenstein, Roger Corman’s The Raven starring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre parodying some of their past efforts, and, of course, Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein. All films near and dear to my funny bone. I took particular note of why they worked so well. It was a wisdom of comedy first pointed out to me by Chuck Jones, the great Looney Tunes director of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, et al., and the creator of the Coyote and the Roadrunner. I worked with Chuck off and on for years. One day we were discussing Airplane!, the 1980 comedy feature film. I pointed out that many of the gags in the movie seemed much like the work of that other great cartoon director, Tex Avery. Especially in Avery’s comedy timing and visual surrealness. Chuck agreed but then pointed out that it “worked” as a feature film because they took the plot seriously. “You really cared if that damn plane was going to crash or not,” Chuck said. And, indeed, the filmmakers had “borrowed” the plot and characters from the 1957 Paramount film, Zero Hour, a straight dramatic suspense film.
The same could be said of the horror-comedy films mentioned above. The horrible threats from creatures and vampires were real for Abbott and Costello. And in the wizards’ duel between Price and Karloff, the dire consequences if the good wizard lost were unthinkable. The confusion and existential angst that Young Frankenstein’s monster felt were just as telling as what the original Frankenstein’s monster felt. They were just a hell of a lot funnier!
So, in Creature Feature: A Horrid Comedy, I put in as much serious weirdness, threat, frights, flights, suspense, and potential horrible outcomes as I could (I mean, being eaten alive is a pretty horrible potential outcome) to form the skeleton for the flesh of funny.
Besides spoofing old creature feature movies, I added some satire of politics. But that may be too horrible and frightening to discuss at this time.
As my novel was imbued with the spirit of monster movies, I wanted the audiobook to be performed more than just read. I wanted it to have fine comedic performances. So, I needed performers with natural wit and an innate sense of comedy timing. I didn’t have to look far, for right in my Rolodex was Seamus Dever and Juliana Dever. (I don’t really have a Rolodex, but I liked the alliteration.) You will remember the Devers (yes, they are married) from ABC’s excellent mystery series, Castle. Seamus played Detective Ryan, a regular on the show. And Juliana guest-starred occasionally as Jenny, his girlfriend and, later, his wife. I first met Seamus when I directed him in a staged reading of a one-act play by Ray Bradbury. I was and remain a fan of Castle. The range of Seamus’s talent from the deeply dramatic to the comedic was well displayed in the series. Seamus is active in Los Angeles theatre, and I rarely miss an opportunity to see him on stage. And his work with Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW), America’s finest radio theater company, has been a delight to follow. Seamus, I knew, would be perfect as the narrator and the characters in the audiobook. But I also knew that Kathy/Vivacia, who is, after all, the main protagonist of the story, needed her own voice. When I saw the wit, lively banter, and obvious chemistry Seamus and Juliana shared in several “lockdown” videos they posted online, it was obvious. Juliana should be my Kathy/Vivacia.
I feel fortunate that Seamus and Juliana agreed to do the audiobook. Besides performing, Seamus produced, directed, and edited the recording, applying his wit and great sense of comedy timing to those efforts as well.
Did my mixing horror and humor work? New York Times bestselling author of horror novels Jonathan Maberry has said: “Creature Feature is a weird, funny, twisty romp through the creepier parts of the American landscape. Highly entertaining and highly recommended.” And Phil Proctor, one-fourth of The Firesign Theatre, the legendary comedy group that the Library of Congress called “The Beatles of Comedy,” said of the audiobook: “This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard—and that’s a good thing! It’s screamingly funny and probably one of the best performed and produced audiobooks I’ve ever heard…and I have tinnitus.”
I guess the answer is yes.
