Possessed Ventriloquist Dummy Thriller “Dominic” from Castle Bridge Media

The upcoming horror/thriller from Castle Bridge Media Dominic, about a possessed ventriloquist dummy who was famous throughout the twentieth century and now needs a new owner. The book, due August 15, sports a cover by designer/editor In Churl Yo.

In Dominic, a woman and her former-supermodel grandmother must fight a possessed dummy that has haunted her family since the fantastic success of her world-famous ventriloquist great-grandfather.The book, a debut from playwright Lee Guzman whose stage play You Got Moxie, explored the psychology of a reclusive former 1950s child star coming out of retirement to oppose the Vietnam War, here taps into the strange twentieth-century appeal of famous ventriloquists and their dummies like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Dummies are always ripe for spookiness, but Dominic takes a unique angle, playing with their place in American pop culture.

The book is in part inspired by legends surrounding the story of supermodel Candice Bergen, whose father Edgar Bergen famously provided ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy with his own room– and eventually left an inheritance to the dummy but not his daughter. In Dominic, a lawyer named Dina, a granddaughter of a Bergen-like supermodel, finds herself suddenly stalked by the dummy– her a barbershop-quartet-themed dummy called Dominic– who is back and looking for someone to control him. When the dummy begins killing Dina’s friends and stalking her through the twentieth-century-pop-culture museum her family runs, Dina must learn the truth about the dummy that until recently was kept under glass. Dina turns to her grandmother, a former supermodel who can help her discover the secret demonic origins of the dummy.

Dominic is published by Castle Bridge Media, an independent publisher of predominantly genre books with a particular interest in horror, science fiction, thriller, and fantasy. The publisher, which produces the Castle of Horror and Castle Talk podcasts, was recently featured in Deadline when Danger Force producer Mike Caron’s company optioned the Castle Bridge Media series Monster Kid Detective Squad.