Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

The new Epix series Chapelwaite is derived from Stephen King’s short story Jerusalem’s Lot, and arrives on August 22.

Set in the 1850s, Chapelwaite follows Captain Charles Boone (Adrien Brody), who relocates his family of three children to his ancestral home in the small, seemingly sleepy town of Preacher’s Corners, Maine after his wife dies  at sea.  However,  Charles  will soon have to  confront  the secrets of  his family’s sordid history,  and fight to end the darkness that has plagued the Boones for generations.

Emily Hampshire plays Rebecca Morgan, an ambitious young woman who left Preacher’s Corners to attend  Mount Holyoke College, and has returned home with an advance  to write a story for the new and prestigious Atlantic Magazine.  Her writer’s block lifts when Boone arrives in town with his children, and despite her mother’s protests, Rebecca applies to be governess of the infamous Chapelwaite manor and the Boone family in order to write  about them. In doing so, Rebecca will not only craft the next great gothic novel, she’ll unravel a mystery that has plagued her own family for years.

In the panel, showrunner Peter Filardi explained, “The horror, or the antagonist, is sort of an interpersonal horror or threat that evolves, or devolves as the case may be, and goes even further and evolves into sort of a cosmic horror, which is very Lovecraftian obviously [as it is] in the short story. I think to keep it sort of interesting over 10 hours, it’s fun to sort of change the face of the antagonist.”