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SYFY WIRE Chapelwaite

Adrien Brody enters a cursed house in first trailer for EPIX's new Stephen King series 'Chapelwaite'

By Matthew Jackson

Whether you're talking about Lisey's Story, Mr. Mercedes, or Castle Rock, Stephen King's had a lot of luck on the small screen lately, as more and more storytellers use long-form storytelling to expand on his dark worlds. This summer, we'll see another effort in the vein, this one attempting to build an entire series out of a single King short story full of mystery, darkness, and period horror. The series is called Chapelwaite, and today EPIX released its first chilling trailer.

Based on "Jerusalem's Lot," a King short story that appeared in his Night Shift collection back in 1978, the story follows a sailor named Charles (Adrien Brody), who receives a letter from a recently deceased cousin letting him know that he's just inherited the family's stately New England home, Chapelwaite. Upon arriving with his children and hiring a local governess (Schitt's Creek star Emily Hampshire), Charles and his family start to notice strange things happening around the house. There are noises in the walls, unexplained apparitions, and even a certain off-putting nature about the surrounding neighbors. Something's very wrong at Chapelwaite, and as the trailer for the show's first season reveals, it's much more than rats in the walls.

Check it out:

King's original story takes the form of an epistolary tale, recounting Charles' experiences at Chapelwaite in the form of letters to a friend which depict him either slowly going mad or slowly succumbing to a supernatural force. Over the course of the short story, Charles begins talking about a strange cult that seems to hold sway over the nearby deserted village of Jerusalem's Lot, which pushes the tale into Lovecraftian territory.

Jerusalem's Lot, of course, is better known as 'Salem's Lot, the town at the center of King's vampire novel of the same name, and essentially serves as a prequel that lays out the early darkness in the town. The connections are also clear in the trailer, which relishes its occult connections and, by the end, seems to have thrown vampires into the mix as well.

What mysteries does Chapelwaite hold as it expands on a King short fiction classic? We'll find out more when the series premieres August 22 on EPIX.