Chapelwaite

The series twists its horror kaleidoscope well. It falters in places when it comes to character motivation and overwrought relationship drama, but Chapelwaite manages to be both uncomplicated and surprising.

[Chapelwaite writers/showrunners Peter and Jason Filardi] get it so right at the start, gifting audiences with a beautifully mounted period piece, grounded in excellent performances by the entire cast. But by the series’ mid-point, it’s becomes abundantly clear that there isn’t enough necessary story to fill the last five hours.

Caution: Yawning ahead. [30 Aug - 12 Sep 2021, p.15]

Chapelwaite is more purely horror and yet somehow duller, especially in a plodding first half. If the first five episodes of Chapelwaite had been condensed to two hours and the last five episodes had been trimmed to another two, I would still say that the miniseries was a slow burn, while acknowledging that there’s schlocky fun to be had in the home stretch.

The questionable effort to extend a short story to 10 episodes backfires here, turning this narrative into a slog, a journey that’s hampered even further by ineffective performances from two tragically miscast leads.

Although the miniseries never explicitly announced it, Chapelwaite is an adaptation of the short tale Jerusalem's Lot. A sort of prequel to the famous novel Salem's Lot by the even more famous Stephen King. I personally liked it because of the incredible atmosphere, even with all the huge changes that were made to the original story. Maybe it has the problem that 10 episodes were too many, 'cause it's very noticeable in the last 3 that the story was over-extended more, but even so it seemed one of the best adaptations of King's work. Because there are so many, but very few that are really worth it.

It's a slog, all right, and the female lead is particularly uncompelling, like the Rey character in Star Wars--only more bland what with the 1850s default restrictions on women and all. Four episodes would have been a better Halloween treat than the ten we're subjected to. Drive a stake through this one's heart and instead opt for the 3.5-hour 1979 version of Salem's Lot.

It's bad. I did first read the short story that's the series is "based" on. I hate it how much liberty it took and just went on spooky spooky. Also the fight with the main bad ****, just no.