Chapelwaite: Season 1 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2021

Contains spoilers

Chapelwaite is a series built upon the foundation of the Stephen King short story Jerusalem’s Lot. The short itself is a prequel to Salem’s Lot, King's fine vampire novel, but it is devoid of vampires. Rather it is, I would say, King’s homage to Lovecraft – a story of uncanny atmosphere, eldritch terror and an elder god.

The TV series does not loose that primary focus – it is a tale of madness and a mind shattering terror in the form of an elder god (the worm) – but because it is connected to Salem’s Lot, and features the original settlement, an abandoned mining town called Jerusalem’s Lot, the filmmakers decided they would have to throw in a whole bunch of vampires. It also helped expand the plot as it needed to fill ten episodes.

Adrien Brody as Boone

We prologue with whaling Captain Charles Boone's (Adrien Brody) childhood, and his father’s attempt (in his madness) to murder Charles to spare him from the worms. Boone became Captain of a whaling ship and, in the course of their voyages, met and fell in love with a Polynesian woman, Maya (Lily Gao, Rabid), who he married and had three children with – Honor (Jennifer Ens), Loa (Sirena Gulamgaus) and Tane (Ian Ho). We meet them as Maya dies – but before she does she reminds Charles of his inheritance of Chapelwaite, a house on his estranged family’s side, and encourages him to take the children there to live.

Stephen hung

Reaching the house, he discovers there has been some vandalism as the Boone’s are less than popular in the nearby town. Known to be odd, his cousin Stephen (Steven McCarthy, the Strain) hung himself in the cellar with his daughter Marcella (Acadia Colan) dead at his feet and subsequently Stephen’s father, Philip (Julian Richings, Forever Knight, the Red Violin, the Last Sect, Lost Girl, Hemlock Grove & Blood Hunters), walked into the sea and has not been seen again. However, there is a wasting sickness in town and the Boone’s are blamed for it. When Charles tries to integrate, both his family name and the fact that the children are mixed race causes the town to (sometimes vehemently and even violently) reject him.

Christopher Heyerdahl as Jakub

There are a couple of exceptions – primarily Rebecca Morgan (Emily Hampshire), who offers to become a Governess for the children but she has an ulterior motive. She has been offered a writing contract for a publication and intends to write their story, without their knowledge. As things progress Charles starts to have horrific visions and can hear rats in the walls of the house (though an exterminator says there are none). As the series progresses, we discover that a vampire, Jakub (Christopher Heyerdahl), and his disciples (both vampire and mortal), has taken residence in Salem’s Lot and is looking for a book entitled Vermis Mysteriis. This book is the key that will summon an elder god and plunge the world (universe?) into darkness. Charles is key to finding the book as his family is tied to it and it sends them mad. Stephen and Philip are not gone, however, but are vampires also, after the book for their own ends and really are the cause of the wasting disease in town.

vampire in the sun

As for the vampires, they follow standard rules – crosses ward them, sunlight burns them (and kills them after a few moments of exposure) and they cast no reflection. The heroes have to discover what kills them by trial and error – Charles puts a whaling harpoon through the stomach of one and is nonplussed when it continues to fight, but soon discovers that decapitation will bring true death to the vampire. It is late on when they discover that piercing the heart works. Turning is caused by drinking their blood and it is intimated that, once imbibed, death will bring on the change, no matter how long since drinking.

feeding

The performances are strong. Adrien Brody runs an absolute line in stoicism for the most part, with explosive emotions as his handle on sanity slips, however his low intoned dialogue makes him an odd central hero. That’s not to say it didn’t work but it is not dynamic. This, however, fits with the mist shrouded, Gothic atmosphere that the series generates. Likewise, Emily Hampshire’s performance is good but her vacillation between a dependent woman and an independent (rather too modern) woman felt a tad odd and was entirely a direction/script issue. The biggest issue was that 10 episodes felt too long – this should have been shorter in running length. However in the last couple of episodes the pace noticeably picks up… to a point, at least, and had they ended halfway through the last episode the series would have been no weaker for it. The second half was almost unnecessary and whilst there was a very clever aspect that I won’t spoil, there was also an unsatisfying aspect, which made a little less sense.

That said, the atmosphere really made this one work. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK