MIAMI - s4story -- The haunted frontier of the award-winning Weird Western horror film, A Town Called Purgatory is expanding to audio drama. Miami-based publisher ZealZaddy has licensed the film to create Madlands & Badlands: The First Circle of Purgatory, an original scripted horror anthology podcast set in the same universe, with an original score and a professional voice cast, that will release in 2027. The series is written by ZealZaddy executive editor Cliff Dunn, working with the film's creators, Ken Arnold and Dan DeLuca.

Fans can meet Arnold and DeLuca in Orlando, Florida at Spooky Empire, one of the country's leading horror conventions, Oct. 30–Nov. 1, 2026. On Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, the team will screen A Town Called Purgatory in the Filmmakers Lounge from 2 to 4 p.m. and take questions afterward. The screening is free with convention admission. Fans can also come by the ZealZaddy booth and read a scene from Madlands & Badlands with Arnold and DeLuca for an opportunity to be cast in a role in a future episode.

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ZealZaddy will fund the series on Kickstarter. The campaign opens Friday, Nov. 13, with stretch goals that could expand Season 1 from 10 episodes to 20 or 30 episodes.

"These are the stories a single movie never has room for," said Dan DeLuca, who developed the original story with Arnold, wrote the screenplay, and stars opposite him.

Fans can follow the campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zealzaddy/madlands-and-badlands?ref=6zc9jp

A Town Called Purgatory (2024), follows a Civil War era Yankee lawman and an ex-Confederate who chase a gang of train robbers into a ghost town — and find something terrifying waiting for them. The film won Best in Show at the Sci-Fi Horror & Action Film Festival, Best Feature at Creature Feature Weekend and the Tombstone Film Festival, and top horror honors at the Garden State Film Festival and FirstGlance Philadelphia. It is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi.

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About ZealZaddy

ZealZaddy is an award-winning storytelling studio focused on tabletop roleplaying games and streaming and podcast entertainment. Founded with a mission to elevate narrative play, ZealZaddy publishes a growing library of titles on DriveThruRPG and itch.io, streams weekly actual plays, and produces two original shows: the creator-focused talk show StoryTalk and the competitive game show PaperBag: The Roleplaying Game Show (the latter benefitting charity). In 2025, ZealZaddy launched its first successful crowdfunding project. ZealZaddy continues expanding its catalogue and live programming with a focus on original, human-made, storytelling. Learn more at https://zealzaddy.com.