Horror author by night, state worker by day.
Bryan Asbury knew from his earliest years what made his writerly heart light up.
“The feeling horror invokes in someone, it’s unlike any other genre,” he said. “I like being scared. Being scared is almost fun, primitive almost.”
His penchant to channel his darker imaginings drifted away until his late 20s when he returned to writing short stories. There was “The Chair in the Closet,” about a haunted office chair and the stressed-out worker who can’t escape it. “The Mariachi Man,” about an elderly homicidal mariachi player who befriends his young caregiver. And “Total Control,” where a man tries to control the people and things around him to horrific results.
“My stuff isn’t all dark and extreme horror,” said the Pueblo resident. “Some is horror comedy — lots of suspense and not hardcore horror.”
After a friend encouraged him to start submitting his work, he sent a story to “Chilling Tales for Dark Nights,” a horror fiction anthology podcast with half a million subscribers. It worked — since 2022 eight of his stories have been brought to life by professional voice actors.
After finding podcast success he moved into self-publishing and put out “Waking the Dead,” a collection of short stories. He reached out to Barnes & Noble stores across Colorado, hoping to find at least one that would stock his book. After finally securing a spot in a Denver store, multiple stores across the country added him to their shelves.
The more momentum he built, the more it felt like he could make his ultimate dream come true: making a horror movie. He focused on “The Mariachi Man” and spent the winter turning it into a screenplay
“It had the feel of a good thriller,” he said. “I had an actor in mind to play the role.”
But could an outsider with no Hollywood connections get a movie made? Asbury made it his mission to find out.
He began networking with Colorado filmmakers, then reached out to actors and their agents. It was “like meeting Oz,” Asbury says. His stumbling block, he learned, was the movie’s funding — as in there wasn’t any.
He contacted managers about representing him and made a connection with an entertainment management company in Los Angeles. The president liked Asbury’s go get ’em work ethic and sent his script to Henry Bedwell, a well-known director known for his 2014 horror film “Darker Than Night.”
“I got an email back and he said Henry loves the script, here’s his info, start networking,” Asbury said. “That was incredible, the biggest surprise of this whole experience. We’ve been talking back and forth. This whole thing is arduous. The hard part is the development of the script.”
While Asbury works to make movie magic, he signed this year with Evil Cookie Publishing, an independent publisher that works with underground authors, including horror novelist Edward Lee. Evil Cookie published and released Asbury’s “Waking the Dead” collection in June, which included a few new tales.
“Once in awhile I have a nightmare,” Asbury said. “But I can’t say I’ve ever had a dream that inspired a story, like Stephen King and ‘The Shining.’ My inspirations come from the theatrics in everyday life and the people we see and meet and the experiences we have. I have a warped way of looking at those sometimes.”
