Soul’s Chapel
He is a drifter across the land in the time after the war to end all wars, alone and taciturn as he makes his way through the snowy hills of Kentucky when he finds a totem hanging from a tree, perhaps a sign of warning or a symbol to ward off evil, seeking the myths of “the riches stowed away on those sacred grounds” but aware the reward will come at a cost.
Approached by a robed and masked figure, appearing and disappearing on wind and smoke, while he ponders the mystery of white crystalline geode held in a woven web, the drifter, Ray, is given a challenge couched in riddles by the “Crow Killer,” to find the dark counterpart to this “pure sister” token and return them both for a reward of gold.
A one-man filmmaking enterprise of determination but dubious talent, Soul’s Chapel is produced, directed and edited by Jeremy C Young who also stars as the poncho-wearing drifter, the screenplay by David W Daring based on Young’s story which opens with a voiceover of “the beginning,” before serpents ruled, before man and God and good, when there was only evil in the brightness of the void.
A blending of The Dark Tower and Wynonna Earp inspired by the legends of Soule’s Chapel in Somerset, Kentucky, less than two hours east of Mammoth Cave and sometimes with and sometimes without an apostrophe, as is the title of the film, a supposedly haunted Methodist Church burned to the ground in an arson attack in October 2003, some of that story making its way into this, the indifference to proofreading extending to the credits where “Jermey Boggs” is listed as “the Preist.”
Blending steampunk with Weird West, the guns and the needle cartridge on the gramophone incongruous and anachronistic, it is unclear whether these were production decisions or limitations of budget, the dropped-in reference to radiation poisoning indicating the setting is post-apocalyptic but giving no reason for the period trappings of the titular sanctuary which less resembles a place of dark worship and more a community hall with Hallowe’en themed yard decorations presided over by Yoko Ono.
Sometimes billed as Jake Eastwood, Young’s “Man with No Name” costume presumably in homage to his more famous distant cousin, it offers more than his performance, as flat as his direction of his fellow actors in a film which lacks style, pace or narrative sense, strangers in a room bickering over nothing while in the basement a trunk of wanted posters, headshots and newspaper clippings are neatly printed on glossy 8” x 10” paper, presumably intended to offer some explanation but as ridiculous as the jars of shrunken heads which line the shelves which are obviously photographs of faces.
Soul’s Chapel is available now on DVD and digital download
