Review: The Dooms Chapel Horror

A week or so ago I was contacted by one of the producers of The Dooms Chapel Horror to see if I was interested in reviewing their title. At one point I had posted one of the film’s press releases on the site and I distinctly remember being drawn to it because of the classic 80s feel of the movie’s one sheet. Plus, I love creature features and this one has Bill Oberst Jr. in it, so where could it go wrong? There were a lot of deciding factors that made me very excited to review The Dooms Chapel Horror, and here’s my review having watched it in full.

The Dooms Chapel Horror is written by Jason Turner and directed by John Holt with cinematographer James Houk. Cast members include scream king Bill Oberst Jr. (Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies), Christopher Bower (“Nashville”), Austin Madding, Abby Murphy, Josh Cornelius, Joshua Mark Robinson, Wendy Keeling, Alan Walters, William Ryan Watson, Brandon Brockwell, Shaun Gerardo and Steve Crowley.

The Dooms Chapel Horror follows Kyle Cole as he, “returns home to the town of Kaler Mills. He hasn’t been back in 10 years since the people of the town turned on him believing that he was responsible for his brother’s death in a tragic farm accident. Now, armed with a documentary crew, Kyle has returned to face his demons. But he forgot about one of them…”

The first thing I’d like to say is that The Dooms Chapel Horror is not the type of scary movie that is going to draw you in with insanely gory maulings with blood being splattered all over the forest. What’s really going to draw you in, though, is the underlying plot of the movie. A young man, his girlfriend and a small group of friends armed with cameras documenting an uncomfortable return to a rural childhood town. From the very beginning, The Dooms Chapel Horror hits you right in the gut with its believable and heart-wrenching story about a community and family who lost one of their loved ones in an unfortunate accident. It was such a genius idea to shoot this as a semi-documentary because that air of, “this could be real,” really hits your heart and your nerves in all the right spots. I look at it this way: if you take out the monster and the random killings and just focus on the emotional aspects, then you’ll still have an incredible movie!

This one is slow, too, but not in the sense of being boring. Nothing too exciting happens until about the half hour mark, so you really need to relax and invest yourself in these characters. The estranged family. The girlfriend with scars of her own. The childhood buddy. Again, this isn’t your typical horror movie that relies on blood and boobs (though it does have both!). You need to slow it down for this one and enjoy the ride. The acting is superb and what’s great about that is, save for Oberst and Bower, none of the cast members have made it to the big leagues yet. Still, they are immensely talented and The Dooms Chapel Horror is going to be a great introduction to the entertainment industry for them. I think everyone involved really owned their characters, especially Austin Madding and Wendy Keeling. This was all an extremely wise decision on the part of the screenwriter, Jason Turner. Due to writing a script that allows the viewer to devote time and emotion in the characters, it makes the suspense greater and the adrenaline start to pump harder when the shit really hits the fan near the end.

Another extremely wise decision comes in the form of the creature design. I’ve seen a lot of movies that feature a creature, a monster, an alien, a demon, whatever as the antagonist that does a good job of staying hidden for the majority of the film. Then, when you finally see it, you can’t help but think it looks underwhelming and hokey. With The Dooms Chapel Horror, you don’t see the creature until the very end, and still it’s just random flashes, random body parts and random silhouettes of the face.  About 95% of the creature’s presence in the movie is done through vocals, cut away scenes and dialogue and action from other characters reacting to its charge. I thought this was a wonderful idea because it kept this movie’s quality sky high. Had it featured a creature that was severely lacking in quality, myself and many others may have lowered our ratings. Just really excellent decision making from everyone behind-the-scenes, especially the special effects department.

Wow. I was not expecting what I got with this one. It completely blew away all my original thoughts and ideas. The Dooms Chapel Horror is a heart breaking, hair raising creature feature set against remarkable talent and a backdrop that could be any town near you. An emotional driven horror story that’ll take you to your destination: fear! One of the best horror films done as a quasi-documentary that I have ever seen. Gripping, masterful and anxiety inducing – this one’s a hit and I loved it! Final Score: 9 out of 10.