TV Review: ‘Chapelwaite’

For four episodes, Chapelwaite doesn’t assume that every viewer will know the series is an adaption of Stephen King’s Jerusalem’s Lot. It’s in all the trailers and, the closing credits even mention the exact collection viewers can find the short story in. More shows would do well to promote their source material like that, but it’s not a coincidence that the four best episodes of the season are the four that stand by the show’s decision to change the title to Chapelwaite, instead of Jerusalem’s Lot.

Some background on Jerusalem’s Lot. If the title sounds familiar that might be because of Salem’s Lot, which came out first and was a novel. Salem’s Lot was later adapted into a two-part miniseries starring James Mason, Bonnie Bedelia, and David Soul.

Jerusalem’s Lot and Salem’s Lot are the same place, but Jerusalem’s Lot is a prequel about Charles Boone (Adrian Brody) and his (in the series) family, who move to Chapelwaite after his cousin (Steven McCarthy) passes away. Chapelwaite is the name of the house and after living at sea most of their lives and losing their mother (Lily Gao) to illness, Charles decides some time on land would be good (plus it’s what his wife wanted).

Chapelwaite is a lot like Hill House, though, and for the first four episodes Chapelwaite gets to revolve around this creepy house and the difficult time the Boones have trying to make nice with their neighbors in Preacher’s Corner, because Chapelwaite’s not in Jerusalem’s Lot. Charles mentions it once, as this mining town his ancestors used to run, but Preacher’s Corner is the much bigger deal in the beginning, especially since the people there thought they were done with the Boones and are none too pleased to find out there’s a branch of the family tree they missed (and one where Charles’ wife was Native American, so they’re racist, too).

Brody’s tempered performance as Charles is fascinating. He adopts this deep, gravelly voice for the part, which provides this whole backstory of a captain whose voice got worn down from shouting at sea. Charles’ big problem is hallucinations and he’s worried they might be hereditary. He doesn’t get angry, though, and because Brody is so deliberate about showing how much it takes to get Charles upset, it makes the times he does register all the more.

Other performances worth singling out include Emily Hampshire’s, who gets to show off her range in a role that’s completely different from Stevie on Schitt’s Creek. Jennifer Ens, who plays Charles’ eldest daughter, Honor, makes her the strongest adult on the show, despite her age, and Jennie Raymond makes the role of the bigoted preacher’s wife much harder to predict than you’d expect.

Then there are the monsters, and while anyone familiar with Salem’s Lot will know what monster to look for, the show does a great job of creating a visual that doesn’t immediately give it away but is incredibly violent. As soon as the show starts showing them more, though, they start acting in ways that are much more generic, and it’s a huge letdown from what the show was doing before.

Ten episodes may have been too many for Chapelwaite, and the show develops plot holes towards the end, but for four episodes it’s everything you could want from a period piece by Stephen King.

Chapelwaite premieres August 22nd at 10 PM EST on EPIX.