Director – Jake C. Young (Daylight to Dark, The Dark Room)
Starring – Andrew Pierson (Tulsa King, Punk Shark), Brian Bremer (Pumpkinhead, Coffintooth), and Niko El Santo Zavero (Robot Ninja, Axegrinder 7: New Blood)
Release Date – 2026
Rating – 2/5
When I was in college I found myself really getting into the few horror westerns that I added to my collection when the local Hollywood Video was going out of business. The movies Dead Birds, The Burrowers, The Dead and the Damned, and Ravenous were all cheap buys as the video rental giant was trying to liquidate as much as they could.
Honestly, I enjoyed them and still check them out from time to time when I want something different to watch. I always keep an eye out for a horror western when I’m movie browsing but I rarely find them. A few weeks ago I received a press release for a supernatural horror western. The movie, Souls Chapel, caught my eye but the title and artwork didn’t do much for me. However, I quickly agreed to check it out when I was offered the chance.
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a drifter who is on the hunt for gold when he finds himself in the middle of a snow storm. He tries to seek sanctuary in a small church but soon finds himself at the mercy of the town priest, his nun, and their followers. Things go from bad to worse when he learns that there are supernatural forces at play in this small town and the church is at the center of it all. **Spoiler Alert**
I went into Souls Chapel kind of excited. It’s been a minute since my last horror western and that film in particular was very underwhelming. I was hoping that this one would finally scratch that itch that I didn’t know I had but it fell short. I seriously wanted to like it but it was too stretched out and not enough going on to hold my attention. It was a great looking film but it just didn’t have anything to say.
The acting in this one is a bit uneven and inconsistent. Some of the cast shows inexperience while those that have appeared on camera prior to this shows a lot of inconsistency. In some of the scenes we have some great performances where the cast is really dialed in while other scenes feel rushed. The characters themselves are somewhat cliched but a few do shine through the cracks, most importantly, the woman in white and the nun.
The story for this one is stretched way too thin for the run time we have. The movie uses pointless scenes full of dull dialogue to bloat the run time. A good portion of the film could be trimmed down making the story more streamlined. The movie should have took the story and went straight through it instead of all these unnecessary scenes.
Finally, the film has some blood and a few deaths but neither are that memorable. The effects are minimal and the deaths are not that imaginative. Genre fans will want more and will be very disappointed by this. Overall, Souls Chapel is an interesting idea that just didn’t find it’s way. The story reminded me a little of the series Wynonna Earp but just wasn’t able to give us the fun characters or a story to follow. I wanted to love it but it just wasn’t for me.
